Obama, Tea Party, Jobs and Speeches

OBAMA

• CNN analysts: Reaction to Obama jobs speech (From CNNPolitics.com) President Barack Obama on Thursday laid out his $447 billion economic plan before a joint session of Congress, saying that lawmakers should put the interests of the American people before politics.
• Can Obama overcome D.C.'s partisan poison? (By John Avlon, CNN Contributor) John Avlon says a fired up President Obama was appealing to the middle class and small businesses. "He'll need to put forward an equally bold and bipartisan deficit reduction proposal, because the American Job Creation Act's estimated $450 billion price tag will provoke some rote "Stimulus II" criticism, and independent voters in particular have wised up to the fact that throwing federal money at a problem doesn't solve it."
• Obama raps tea-party philosophy in jobs speech (Kathie Obradovich, Des Moines Register/Iowa Caucuses) Obama said most Americans don’t care about politics. But he was speaking to the ones who do, including independent voters who might be lured by the tea-party approach to government. Where would our country be today, he asked, if leaders of both parties had decided not to build our highways and railroads, or decided the federal government didn’t have the authority to create Social Security and Medicare?
• Obama Challenges Congress on Job Plan (By MARK LANDLER, NY Times) “You should pass this jobs plan right away,” the president declared over and over in his 32-minute speech, in which he eschewed his trademark soaring oratory in favor of a plainspoken appeal for action, stiffened by a few sarcastic political jabs.