For Liberals, Obama Saved the Best for Last

Liberals were looking for bolder leadership from the president, and in both his prepared oratory and his off-the-cuff ripostes Barack Obama seemed the man we elected little more than a year ago. On the metrics I laid out in my pre-speech column—more populist policies, invoking a broader vision than the legislative minutiae of the last several months, reestablishing himself as a different kind of politician, and establishing his willingness to play "guts ball," to go to the mat for something—Obama acquitted himself well.

It was not a speech whose principal mission was to woo liberals. Obama has hemorrhaged support among independents, and the speech was filled with olive branches for voters who most distrust government and federal power. But the way Obama shamed Republicans and called them out to participate in governing had to warm liberal hearts. Obama did it so deftly, rattling off a series of tax cuts included in the hated stimulus bill. When Republican leaders in the hall remained seated and silent, he quipped, "Thought that would get some applause," which belatedly brought a sheepish John Boehner, the House GOP leader, to his feet.

There wasn't a lot of populist rhetoric, which Obama isn't very good at, but he touted the fee on banks and called out the lobbyists trying to kill financial-services reform. He saved the best part of his speech until last—his declaration to stick with health-care reform and his sermon on good governance. Republicans who have been so giddy about denying Democrats their filibuster-proof majority may find that now that they're needed to govern, sitting on the sidelines and filibustering bills they've cosponsored—like they did this week with legislation to establish a bipartisan commission on deficit reform—is a tactic they can no longer get away with so easily. If raising the cost to Republicans for their obstructionism is all Obama achieved tonight, that alone should cheer liberals.