As I'm watching Obama come in to start his State of the Union speech, I wonder where he can even go with this besides hardline.  The absolute impotence he's faced this past year in particular, culminating in the government shutdown and the healthcare rollout debacle put him in a very difficult position.  It's pretty much a given that Congress won't cooperate unless the Democrats win this year, but that's still most of a year away, so it has to be time for the kid gloves to come off.

There has always been a particular sense that, as the first black President and a progressive, he had the potential that could transform the dismal decade that preceded his role and give the nation hope that things could get better.  Maybe the pendulum was swinging back toward empowering the middle and lower classes while holding the upper accountable for the vampirism and pathological indifference to the financial and moral wreckage they left over the past decades at the nation's expense.

Tonight is just words, but hopefully he's finally realized that we reelected him for a reason and for a purpose.  It's time to get serious and put the general populace first, not the corporations and those who already have a secure financial future. We need a new Great Society with concern for the nation, not the lobbyists and special interests; please let it happen!