Obama: There will be time to punish those who set this fire, but now is the moment for us to come together and put the fire out

Hey, maybe Barack Obama's flowery style of speech does have some benefits. He actually argued a credible case for why Congress needs to pass The Big Bailout Bill. A Washington Post blog post by Perry Bacon Jr. entitled "Obama Pushes Passage of Wall Steet Rescue Bill" calls out some of his best points and tells us that Obama "has shifted to aggressively pushing passage of the bill." Good move. Barack's line that I thought was most cogent and dirt-easy for any damn fool to make any sense out of was:

There will be time to punish those who set this fire. But now is the moment for us to come together and put the fire out.

I could not agree more with that sentiment, but I am sure there are still plenty of left-wing activists from MoveOn and other Progressive organizations that organized a "Vote No" campaign for Monday's vote who are probably chanting "Burn Baby Burn!" rather than even wanting to see the fire put out. Scumbags.

He also had a great point that nobody could make before the vote on Monday:

Over one trillion dollars of wealth was lost by the time the markets closed on Monday. And it wasn't just the wealth of a few CEOs on Wall Street. The 401Ks and retirement accounts that millions count on for their family's futures are now smaller. The state pension funds of teachers and government employees lost billions and billions of dollars. Hardworking Americans who invested their nest egg to watch it grow are now watching it disappear.

I agree 100% with that, but it is also true that there are plenty of Americans without either 401Ks or pension plans or retirement accounts who are really struggling and resent having to struggle even more to protect somebody else's "nestegg."

Of course we should applaud Barack for stating the challenge that should be (but wasn't) apparent to all parties:

To the Democrats and Republicans who opposed this plan yesterday, I say -- step up to the plate and do what's right for this country.

But of course there is in fact plenty of ideological difference on exactly what is "right for this country."

In any case, I am thrilled to see one of the presidential candidates actually "step up" and speak up for taking some action rather than simply engaging in ideological sniping and self-serving butt-covering.

-- Jack Krupansky