Sadly, I missed the President's first national address the other night. I didn't do much follow-up, and only recently got some feedback on it.

What I hear is the guy who's entire campaign was built on hope, basically spent the entire speach predicting little more than gloom and doom. The word "Crisis" was used 25 times. Assessment was that the speach was little more than pre-setting the excuses. If he fails, he can say he warned us - not his bad. Damn man, the buck stops there - take it on the chin even if maybe it's NOT 100% your fault. I'll give Bush his due, he never pussied out like this. It goes with the job, have some balls. This coupled with some serious scare tactics to ramrod a questionable stimulus package.

I hope that this is an unfair characterization - because frankly what this country really needs (and I thought voted for) was some serious optimism and hope. An economic depression is as much a national state of mind as anything else - and a leader who preaches fear and dispare like this is a pretty big dissappointment.