sinz: The president has no power to enforce and yet your tone suggests that he should because leaving it up to Congress is bad. Could you elaborate as to who should be making these reforms? I’m not trying to be snarky or anything I just want your take on governmental balance of power.

What a leader Obama is, heh?

LOL!

Citizens and commentators should send Obama a clear message tomorrow: go back to your office and come up with something substantive or stop wasting our time.

Sorry, but thanks for playing.

Two out of three Americans who watched President Obama’s health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans, a 14-point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. national poll.

More than seven in 10 said that Obama clearly stated his goals, with one in four saying he didn’t express his goals clearly.

Obama has the power to “enforce” his promises, just as every other president has power to “enforce” promises. All presidents make promises as to legislation – it isn’t a useless act. In fact, no bill is ever going to arrive on his desk that isn’t along the broad outlines of his speech. The party leadership is committed to doing what it takes to make sure the bill at least can be argued to be deficit-neutral, and will contain language excluding illegal immigrants and abortion, and every other major bullet-point of Obama’s speech. If Pelosi weren’t 100% behind what he said, he wouldn’t have said it. There are some contentious issues, such as the public option, but he didn’t make that a deal breaker.

Obama wasn’t speaking for himself, but for the Democratic leadership. That’s how it works, and always has, in both parties. Nothing “empty” about it.

Unfortunately, the President has NO POWER to enforce those promises–except the threat of a Presidential veto, something Obama won’t carry out because he’s desperate to get any kind of health care reform. If Obama doesn’t veto, then it’s still all up to the Congress. They’re not bound by anything Obama said.

We’re past the point of proposals. We’ve got H.R. 3200 in the House, we’ve got Baucus’s proposal in the Senate Finance Committee. Those are the real bills. Obama didn’t say anything about whether either of those he finds acceptable. So basically, Obama once again left the whole thing in the hands of Congress.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans who don’t understand how all this works, and they’ll believe Obama’s empty promises.

What, exactly, were you expecting in a speech on healthcare? I think a reasonable person would expect to hear an outline of proposals. Isn’t that what it was? Are there any groundbreaking ideas left in this old topic? The audience WASN’T the Congress, but the television viewers (as is usual in these speeches, including the State of the Union). The goal was to close the polling gap – specifically, when people are asked if they support the Democratic/Obama plan, they say no, but when the plan is described, they say yes. It wasn’t the change the minds in Congress (do you remember, ever, Harry Reid or Newt Gingrich saying “before his speech, I thought the President’s proposals were nutty, but he really changed my mind tonight?”) Public pressure changes the minds of Congress, not Presidential oratory.

Five seconds on the internet confirms that you are probably just wrong about this being unprecedented. George HW Bush had a speech before a joint session on the budget, as did Bill Clinton.

“Empty” is a critique of a speech that focuses only on tone. “Empty” are the complaints against this President, not for what he says, but for the fact that he speaks at all (how dare the President speak to schoolchildren or a joint session of Congress!)