President Obama's Health Care speech

Some initial thoughts about President Obama's speech tonight. First of all, I will admit that I was not going to watch. I prefer to read the text, forgoing the seemingly endless interruptions for applause. However, Karen had started to watch it on C-Span, so I looked over her shoulder. What I heard made me angry, and made me sit down to watch the rest. There was heckling!!! Yes, heckling--during a speech given by the President of the United States.
Have we, as a nation, really sunk this low in our public discourse??? I cannot ever remember this happening during a speech given by a president in my lifetime. I cannot speak to history, but in my lifetime, there has always been the greatest respect given, from both sides of the political aisle, to the person holding the office. I'm very sure there have been times that heckling might have been deserved, but (and with all due respect to my British friends), our members of Congress have NOT behaved like members of the House of Commons during Prime Minister's Question Hour. Until tonight. There was heckling, and a holding up of unknown papers by Republican members of Congress. Shame on them.
I can only think they felt free to heckle the president because Dick Cheney was not there to glower at them from the podium.
The speech was typical Obama--simple and inspiring. He addressed concerns, called out the fearmongers, and then reminded us that we're better than this. We have a history of taking care of those who need help--mentioned Social Security and Medicare, SCHIP. He talked about how we will pay for this--hopefully some of my more skeptical friends were listening during that part.
My favorite part came toward the end, when President Obama said, "But that's not what the moment calls for. That's not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it." Amen, brother. We will all hold hands and help along those who are scared--in the end, we will have a health care system that works for all of us. ALL Americans.
Oh yeah, and only about 5% of Americans will choose the public option. So, no scary big government. That was last administration.

A library without the books - The Boston Globe

A library without the books - The Boston Globe

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Speaking as one who sees value in browsing REAL books, this is the worst possible decision.