This is one strikingly unsentimental speech. Talk about a change message; if you listen to President Obama you would think that this country's leaders - both Democrats and Republicans -- have been asleep at the wheel for the past generation: a failure of oversight, a failure of regulation, a failure of imagination. He is making one of the most direct cases for political change that any President has made in a very long time. And he is doing a great job of placing the current crisis in the larger context of this lack of action from Washington.

It's hard to disagree with Obama words, but I am taken aback by the starkness of his message and the assertiveness of his tone.  He is laying down some serious markers and his greatest enemy seems to be inaction; the notion that somehow half measures will suffice. This is an impressive performance.