No Contest

Let me enter the face-paced world of text-based yelling that is political blogging with a few thoughts about last night's address. First, Obama gives a right nice speech. I was expecting a much more somber speech, but he knocked it up a notch with a lot of optimistic rhetoric. The energy was good; I mean, since when is there laughter and hooting during a presidential address to Congress?
He even got some applause from the GOP since they have to clap for Teddy R and no one can say they are against health care. Finally, the notch-up-knocking was in full effect with the little girl who wrote a letter to Congress saying she wasn't a quitter. I usually find it a bit sappy when they have these moments of introducing some ordinary citizen in the audience and telling their story. But you could read in her face what a huge deal it was to that girl and the whole event came off pretty touching to me.

Now the rebuttal. I did a quick flip through the comment section of cnn.com or some such and the best remark I saw compared Obama's speech to Jindal's as "man versus boy." I think this sums it up pretty well. Obama is a very talented orator who is clearly a tough act to follow. But Jindal was abysmal. Not only did he sound like a teenage boy whose voice was about to break, but the speech itself was ridiculous. I can't wrap my head around the cognitive dissonance associated with the Louisiana governnor using Katrina as a warning against a Democratic government. The tone of voice was rather bad as well; I thought he was talking to a three year old.

Well that's my two cents. You can leave your own or higher denominations in the comments.