The Obama and Jindal Speeches -- Some Quick Takes

First of all, the disappointing part. I like Bobby Jindal and hope some day that he will run for President. He is bright and accomplished.

His delivery of last night's Republican response was as bad as I've ever seen by a national political figure. The content was ok, but the delivery was awful.

The speech by Obama was ok. It was not really a State of the Union speech, but it was being compared to that. As such, it was better than the laundry list of promised spending and programs that have constituted those speeches over the last couple of administrations.

I also thought, though, that the speech sounded more like a campaign speech than a presidential address to the nation and before Congress. At some point, the sweeping rhetoric needs to be more concrete.

It was also noteworthy that he vowed to move immediately on health care reform (next week!?), even though as of this date he has no named Secretary of HHS and no one officially in charge of health care policy.