[Sigaba]

Reading the president's speech, I appreciated how he set forth an understandable narrative of the ongoing crisis in a way that lets Americans see the connection between their everyday lives and the economy as a whole. Not only does this represent good presidential leadership, it provides a great extended quote for future historians wanting to capsulize how the president inspired so much confidence in so many Americans. (Disclosure: I am not yet one of those Americans.)

I don't particularly care for the way he presents America as being at the crossroads of history (a theme he rode to the White House). The president presents himself as the solution while insisting that he is in no way a part of the problems of the past nor the consequences of ineffective solutions that failed to solve those issues. Instead, he insists that he has 'inherited' these problems. Yet, he was a senator--albiet an absentee one. He did play a part in that body's inability to address America's current economic crisis.

To me, the president comes across as a guy standing off to the side, laying in the cut, as his teammates try to move a piano. Only after they've failed several times to move the piano (to his whispers of "You're doing it wrong") does he role up his sleeves, walk over, offer a suggestion to his now exhausted colleagues, and help with the heavy lifting. If the piano rises, he'll get the credit for being there in the nick of time. Lost in the thundering applause, the laughs, and the expressions of gratitude is the fact that we'll never know what difference he might have made had he made his best effort sooner.