Anyone expecting truly fundamental change is going to be disappointed.Rich Lowry:
No matter how bad a ‘reform’ is, it could be worse. This is how they bought off the drug companies in the health-care debate — by threatening worse. It is why the insurance companies were conflicted. Yes, they were maligned. But they’d live to fight another day, and in the meantime, the government would mandate that people buy their product.Tunku Varadarajan:
Obama’s invitation to debate, here, is akin to his conversation on health-care reform: It is a call to all to come to him, and to drink deeply of his wisdom.Howard Fineman:
He essentially said that anyone who doesn’t go along with his and the Democrats’ proposals are selfish, irresponsible, crooked, or all three. What is Obama up to with this? He’s trying to counter antigovernment populism with antibusiness populism. No, he didn’t demand that CEOs give their bonuses back, but he portrayed ‘Wall Street’—a phrase he repeated eight times in a short speech—as the ground zero of all that’s wrong with the markets.