Shannon Costello

Part of me wished I had live-blogged it, particularly when I spotted the teleprompters.

The noisy atmosphere was interesting.  I didn’t understand a lot of it.  At one point he was getting a chorus of groans (around the time he was talking about illegal immigrants NOT getting coverage), and I didn’t quite know why.  Another time a bunch of people were holding up some papers, and I didn’t know what they were.  And (’cause I’m tv-deprived), when the camera focused on certain people, I couldn’t identify them.  That was ok with J. Dingell (his name sounds funnier than it looks, by the way…though I’m not trying to mock him here…I appreciated how genuinely grateful he looked at the recognition he got…he has certainly demonstrated perseverance), since I could figure him out from context, but there was a lady in pink, I think, (NOT Michelle!) on whom the camera focused frequently and I had no idea who she was.

McCain’s big grin when Obama used his idea from the campaign was entertaining.  I think he knew they were both scoring at that point, but that Obama was scoring more!

I thought the speech (I listed to most of it with varying degrees of attention…I was busy meditating on my errors as a teacher) was reasonable.  Some things he did a really good job with- like comparing required health insurance  to required auto insurance.  Whether or not it is a fair comparison, it’s an analogy people can readily understand.

I have to say that I agree with S. Palin’s ghostwriter’s Wall Street Journal op-ed piece:  I certainly do not trust the government to handle health care well.  I enjoyed it that Obama clearly referred to her when he talked about the death panels.  She may have enjoyed it too…free attention for a politician?  Were I him, I probably would have made that reference much more subtle…no point in giving free attention to the enemy.  I think he made that mistake with the Rush L. thing as well.  I would ignore them both as much as possible.

He really raised the stakes with this speech.  He carefully pointed out that every president since Roosevelt (I’ve forgotten which one) has tried and failed to do something with health care…and said that he wants to break that pattern of failure.  Big task. A smart move was pointing out that there is no need to do anything horribly drastic.  I read a comment somewhere a few days ago about Americans not liking big changes from the government, and that rings true for me.

So while I am opposed to major health care legislation, I thought Obama made a decent try for progress tonight.  And I’m glad I’m not in his shoes…I have no idea what should be done about health insurance problems and people-  including illegal immigrants- who die because they can’t get coverage.