I don't think what I saw tonight was Barack Obama. That's not who he is nor is it who he wants to be. Obama is a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, an appeaser. He wants to find common ground and have everyone come together feeling good. He still thinks its possible. He doesn't want to call people out on their lies, even when its absolutely clear they are lying. I think he's uncomfortable doing it.

But tonight he was hard. He called the republicans out in their own house, albeit minority house. He laid out their three most prominent lies before them and clearly explained them. He even called them "lies."

He came out strong for the public option. And you know, I don't think he wanted to do any of this. I think he did it for us, for the liberal bloggers and readers. For the progressives on the web and progressives in general. We pushed him into it. And now we really need to watch his back and get to work. We're not going to get anything better than this and we're down to the wire. 

I voted for Obama, but I didn't work for him or support him. I was hard core for Hillary, not going to say why, don't want to refight that battle. I'm for Obama now. He didn't say or do all I wanted tonight but for me, it was the first time he did enough. This is the final push. I'll work for him now like many of you did during the election. If this speech is going to pay off for him, and for us, we need to support him now.

Let's not get too sidetracked on Joe Wilson. That's useful to shine a light on how low the right has sunk, and to shame them into better behavior. But let's not lose sight of the goal, meaningful health care reform. We need to show our support, make some noise, in any way we can.