We watched the speeches of Obama and Boehner tonight. They were both campaign ads for the most part, but Obama, as president, rates a much longer speech. Not sure if that is such a good thing but that's how it is. I'm amazed that the networks gave him another prime time slot, but it would be hard to explain to their minority viewers and advertisers if they were perceived to be giving Obama a cold shoulder. So, they shrugged theirs and gave Obama his prime time.

One of Obama's strong suits is his speechmaking. In fact, it was a speech, the one at the Democratic convention, that catapulted him into national prominence. And while he didn't get fired up like he can on the campaign trail, he did give a very natural speech. It was like he was talking off the top of his head even though he had to be reading off teleprompters. That is a great skill, and Obama is hard to top in relation to his contemporary politicians. There isn't a speechmaker anywhere near his talent in all of the federal government that I know.

And Obama's got the best of this argument. How can the republicans want to cut people of modest means that rely on the government for basic survival when the richest keep all of their current privledges? Even if that isn't exactly what they mean, that's how it is coming off, and that is going to kill their party in the long run. The simple facts are that there are a lot more people that are just making it than those that have it easy financially.

Those of us who are barely keeping up - we see our basic expenses keep going up while our incomes are at best staying even and probably going down. At the same time, the super rich are getting richer. They have all the advantages of the life of comfort and privilege with little responsibility to the rest of the country that don't have the same comfort and privilege. When there is such a disparity in wealth with a very very small percent accumulating huge amounts of wealth while most of the people are just getting by, is it reasonable to expect that if there is a situation where everyone is supposed to chip in to help the whole country, that those with the most to give wouldn't be asked to give? It's pretty much beyond absurd.

And so we come down to the dueling speeches. It's pretty amazing that the networks gave Boehner 5 minutes to respond to the president. I'm not sure I remember any presidential speech, other than the state of the unions, where the minority party has been given that status. But hey, I'm all for it. I think it's great. It's an admission that the so-called "fairness doctrine" was right afterall. And hey, wasn't it the republicans that killed it? And while we probably won't find out, I bet they were out there begging the networks to give them time to respond, arguing "fairness." Dang, they are such hypocrites. But let's reinstate the fairness doctrine, regardless of what the loud mouth limbaugh says. But tomorrow the republicans will be against it again. So predictable.

I thought that Boehner made two flippant shrugs of his shoulders, which he probably couldn't control and which is why they were so telling, which will hurt him with independents. But the main flaw in Boehner's response is that he didn't try to address Obama's point that in order to be fair, the rich should be asked to help too if the poorer of us are going to asked to sacrifice.

And this thing about the deficit being so bad that it is an imminent threat to our security? Who else is saying that besides a few republican politicians? Not any credible economists. Sure, we can't keep going like this forever with deficit spending, but Obama didn't invent deficits, and if Bush hadn't wrecked the eocnomy Obama may have been able to get away with not having to try and stimulate the economy. But of course the republicans have opposed everything that Obama has tried to do, even when he agrees with the republicans. It's the most cynical and really evil political behavior that I have seen in my life. And Mitch McConnell is probably mostly to blame.

It's hard to know how the public will react. We will get some reaction tomorrow morning on the morning news shows. But my guess is that the pressure is racheted up on the republicans. Let's see if they dig in and push this further toward the abyss, or they start to negotiate in good faith. I kind of doubt if they will. As I have written before, I think that a substantial number of these newer republican congressman want to the government fail. They want chaos, they want survival of the fittest. They think that they can benefit from that. But most of the country won't. The fact that they can't see that blows my mind. They must think that the nation will be behind them, but in my opinion, that is bad judgment. We will see, won't we?