As Will Milberg anticipated, President Obama gave a speech last night that did not just involve political positioning. It was a serious Address to a Joint Session of Congress about our economic problems, proposing significant solutions. The address was also politically astute, and will be consequential. Obama was on his game again, revealing the method to his madness.

His game is not properly appreciated, as I have argued already here. He has a long term strategy, and doesn’t allow short term tactics to get in the way. He additionally understands that politics is not only about ends, but also means.

Many of his supporters and critics from the left, including me, have been seriously concerned about how he handled himself in the debt ceiling crisis. He apparently compromised too readily, negotiated weakly, another instance of a recurring pattern. In the first stimulus, healthcare reform, and the lame duck budget agreement, it seemed that he settled for less, could have got more, was too soft. But, of course, this is not for sure. I find that my friends who supported Hillary Clinton look at me, as an early and committed Obama supporter, differently now and express more open skepticism about Obama these days. But I think, as was revealed last night, that Obama’s failures have been greatly exaggerated. (Today only about political economic issues)

A worldwide depression was averted. The principle of universal health care for all Americans is now part of our law, the most significant extension of what T. H. Marshall called social citizenship since the New Deal. And, a completely unnecessary American induced global crisis did not occur. None of this was pretty. The President had to gain the support of conservative Democrats (so called moderates) and Republicans for these achievements. But it was consequential. In my judgment, despite complete, and not really loyal, Republican opposition to every move he has made, he has governed effectively, steering the ship of state in the right direction, despite extremely difficult challenges.

And during his . . .

Read more: President Barack Obama: There is Method to his Madness