Stop Grumbling

At the annaul Phoenix Awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday, President Obama gave the kind of rousing speech (transcript here) only he can give- and that only when he is in campaign mode (which the GOP has been in for 29 months). Immediately before asking God to bless the United States of American, Obama declared

I expect all of you to march with me and press on. (Applause.) Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. (Applause.) Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We've got work to do, CBC. (Applause.)

It may be hard to find those marching shoes- Barack Obama has been looking for them since he was Senator Obama, running to replace George W. Bush, and on November 3, 2007 asserting (video, below) in Spartanburg, South Carolina

And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.

There have been plenty of opportunities, in Indiana, Wisconsin, or elsewhere, for the President to walk on that picket line. But when he talks about "widening the circle of opportunity, standing up for everybody's opportunities," the "everybody" he speaks of might be quite personal to himself.

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