Whether Obama has plans for nuclear I don’t know. But if he does it still made sense to omit mention, I think.

2. You wrote elsewhere that his remarks about terrorism were “weak.” Peggy Noonan disagrees and so do I. It’s not clear to me how much more forceful he could have been without sounding hysterical and demagogic. In a democratic society, his remarks were sober, strong, measured, and appropriate. Republicans and conservatives, in particular, as I’ve remarked to you several years ago, seem obsessed with affect–the rhetorical expression of anger and militarist militancy in particular. Meaning, it’s often seems more important how riled up the speaker or writer is than how intelligent and effective the policies are which he is articulating. This seems entirely wrong–the Mussolinis, Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos are the creators of mass discipline thru coercive, badgering rhetoric. We can firmly express our views–even against the dispicable–without sounding dispicable ourselves. In doing so, we thus avoid revealing the intellectual emptiness at the core of such ranting.

really ? could you provide the full citation ?

When Obama makes specific proposals please show us specific cost benefit analyses that were ignored.

When Obama’s says, “The question we ask today is … whether it works,” it suggests to me that his administration will welcome arguments over policy, but only if accompanied by evidence.

Is it irrational to give priority to investment in wind power, which can be put online in 2 years with little risk and help end a recession, when nuclear power would require 10 years involve still unresolved risks?

That’s a debate worth having. With rigorous, cost-benefit analysis.

If he can turn practical coalition building into tangible results and actually manage a diverse coalition of advisors and build a consensu he will be successful. If not it will be Jimmy Carter all over again.

Love the Nucelar power arguement, I would love to see us as a country actualy invest in the plants instead of exporting our vast Uranium reserves which is not a renewable resource.

WE import hundreds of billions in foreign oil and export Uranium as a country . We need a leader to take a stand on things like this.

Although poets do not “argue,” no reading of Herbert, Wordsworth, Donne, Milton, Dickinson, Stevens, Bishop, Eliot, et al., could suggest they “recoil” from intellectual rigor. Indeed, “verbal formulas” are alien to poetry, although quite common among intellectuals, whether those formulas be “beautiful” or not.

Obama’s speeches tend, therefore, not to be “poetic” but merely imprecise. This is why–once a few days have passed and the memory of Obama’s delivery has faded–so many people (in my experience) are unable to remember his actual language (except for the infamous Grandma passage). Beware, then, taking the absence of explanationitis (a modern mental disease, primarily of the Left) from those speeches as evidence of (uplifting) “poetry.” And beware, then, taking the presence of explanationitis (in some policy paper, say) as evidence of intellectual rigor.