There are few independent economists (that is, someone who has not singed up as a partisan for any of the political arguments we have) who do not look at the situation we are in and does not see the need for massive government spending. The best ways to get the most stimulus out of that spending may be worthy of reasoned debate. What strings, if any, should be attached to federal funds sent to state and local governments also presents a legitimate subject for debate.

Expressing concerns about excessive government spending, when unemployment is as high as it is, particularly when those raising this issue want to cut taxes on the wealthy and had no problems with running up a deficit as long as the president was a Republican, is to advance partisan political goals and to subordinate the well being of the public at large to the desire for control of the government.

Yet that is exactly the debate we are having. Why is that?

It is not, Mr. Gibbs, because of the whining of liberals. Yes, there are the perpetually unhappy and people from our side of the political road who fail to look at what this President has accomplished despite our broken political system. Their failure to step up and to place their own political goals over the President's efforts to get what can be gotten are not helpful and one of the reasons the minority right wing in this country succeeds so often. We know that.

The debate is whether the government should do what it obviously must against politically motivated drivel is because you, Robert Gibbs, and the White House as a whole, allowed that to happen. Hellbent on achieving a bipartisan consensus, the White House saw the heirs of the New Deal as being unrealistic about what could be achieved without Republican support and, given the President's own good relations with Republicans such as Senator Lugar, believed that compromise was the best way to achieve success.

Sadly, though, one of the lessons the Republican hierarchy drew from the New Deal was that the ambitious rescue of the country by aggressive government intervention put their party in the congressional political wilderness for almost fifty years, except for a couple of years here and there.

Yes, that was what was called for when this administration took office. As one thumb sucker wrote back then:

There is no question that the 100 days after March 4, 1933 changed our country, the electorate and the very way we think about the federal government in ways that still apply today....

So, yes, thanks, oddly to George W Bush, our time has come. He has made his mark on our country and we owe some thanks to him for showing why more competence and less ideology is necessary in the presidency. But he will not be on any more ballots and will soon become forgotten (though Hoover managed to be a useful word to campaign on as late as 1964).

The point is not to replicate the Roosevelt hundred days. That is ridiculous. The point is to change the country in a way that will command the support of a large majority of the public before the general cynicism about government takes root. It does not mean sending Dick Cheney to prison, though that may be where he belongs. There are more important things at stake.

The New Deal became possible because responsible people saw what was happening in Europe and feared revolution in our country. If some people wanted to hold he government back, the President called them out:

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

FOX News and John Boehner should not be setting the political agenda in this country. Answering Mourning Joe is not a high priority. They will never be on our side. Never.

Last night's speech was a good first step. After a week of avoiding the issue (which made technical sense, since it has nothing to do with the federal government), the President spoke plainly and directly and said what we all know to be the right thing:

Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.

This is not really a debatable point among reasonable people. Even President Bush (II) understood this point, attending a mosque less than a week after 9/11:

In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.

Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes. Moms who wear cover must be not intimidated in America. That's not the America I know. That's not the America I value.

I've been told that some fear to leave; some don't want to go shopping for their families; some don't want to go about their ordinary daily routines because, by wearing cover, they're afraid they'll be intimidated. That should not and that will not stand in America.

Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.

This is a great country. It's a great country because we share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth.

The lesson is an old one. Doing the right thing might offend some people, but that does not make it the wrong thing. Elizabeth Warren should be appointed the position designed for her. The White House should propose a program where, by the expenditure---the investment----of massive amounts of federal money we can begin to dig out of the mess we are in after three decades or gross irresponsible beliefs in the fantasy once called, by George H.W. Bush, no less, voodoo economics.

We have the best president we have had since, at the very latest, 11:59 a.m., on January 20, 1969 but, as even the generally ridiculous Mark Halperin has been able to see, there is more to this leadership thing than an ability to talk about what the President himself has done. It is vitally important that Democrats maintain control of Congress and we must all stand united in that goal.

But the White House needs to motivate this country, and the President's supporters. If it would just focus on what needs to be done and how to do it, rather than how it should be packaged or how to answer the unanswerable, we can all move forward together.