The State of the Union Address: And So It Begins

If anyone had any lingering doubts about whether President Obama is ready to fight for his job, the State of the Union Address tonight should have dispelled them. I’m not the biggest fan of the president’s speeches. They can be awfully long, his delivery rather low-key, and his talking points often follow a slow-windup-then-slower-let-down pattern. If he had treated us to that drill tonight, a lot of voters would have switched to a screening of “The Shawshank Redemption” or maybe reruns of “The Big Bang Theory.”

But Mr. Obama was in full-throated campaign mode by the second page of his prepared text. “Let’s remember how we got here,” Mr. Obama said of the struggling economy, talking about how jobs were going overseas before the recession, how working people saw their paychecks stuck while costs rose, along with the salaries of bankers and hedge fund operators.

“In 2008,” he said, “the house of cards collapsed. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them. Banks made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behavior.”

“It was wrong,” the president said. “It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag.”

It was startling, frankly. I haven’t seen the president this combative since before his inauguration.

Mr. Obama has had his share of missteps and setbacks. Maybe more than his share, since the Republicans in Congress have devoted themselves entirely to making sure that he gets as few victories as possible – even if that means slowing the economic recovery, or perhaps specifically in order to slow the recovery. Faced with a hypothetical choice between four more years of a Democratic president, or four more years of recession, they seem to prefer the latter.

He even ended his speech by reminding everyone that he – not President George W. Bush – killed Osama bin Laden. “One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden,” he said. “On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the situation room, when I sat next to Bob Gates – a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.”

Subtle? No.

And I don’t know if it will work. Mr. Obama’s approval ratings are low – higher only than those of Congress. But at least he is making it clear that he will fight, hard.

We’ll soon see how serious he is. Mr. Obama outlined a lot of important and ambitious policy goals tonight. Many of them will take Congressional approval. He may not get it. In fact he probably won’t. But he said he was prepared to fight obstructionism. We will either see that happen, or we will not. That will be the real test.