Since I don’t know what Obama was trying to do in his speech tonight (rally his base? persuade the unpersuaded?), I obviously have no idea whether or not it will succeed. But I do nevertheless have one observation:
If he did intend to give a partisan speech that was sure to insult, anger, and energize those who oppose his approach, so that he could then point to us and say, “See, these right wingers are so negative you can’t reason with them and so we’ll just have to pass a bill with only Democratic support,” he would have given exactly the speech he did.
