He probably won’t totally go Jeff Gillooly on some of the worst peddlers of fear-mongering and outright lies quite like he should (the office of the presidency seemingly impairs one’s ability to speak bluntly, at least for Democrats), but it’s (past) time for President Obama to get back some of the steely, chill-the-fuck-out confidence of the final leg of his presidential run last fall, and deliver another oratorical haymaker when it comes time for this Wednesday’s address to a joint session of Congress on health care reform. Newsweek‘s Eleanor Clift fairly eloquently asserts the same in a new op-ed piece, the key excerpt being:

“There are some things that only can do, or will do, and Obama should stop trying to appease his critics and take them on instead. The anti-government fervor that propels Republicans began with Ronald Reagan in 1980, when he proclaimed in his Inaugural Address that, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Obama’s election should have signaled the end of three decades of conservative dogma. Instead, he and too many Democrats have been intimidated into mimicking the GOP and accepting watered-down reform on the altar of bipartisanship. It’s time to call the bluff of the cheap-shot artists who demean government. The benefits of federal intervention touch every American — Social Security, Medicare, and fire and police services, which are all descendents of socialism.”

Of course, Obama could break out a brightly colored, merrily illustrated flow chart and none of this would probably register with Craig T. Nelson, who’s asserted that “no one helped [him] out when [he] was on food stamps and welfare,” or the people that have been showing up at Congressional town hall meetings and yelling “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” at their representatives. These people, after all, are… idiots. Their opposition to reform and/or advocacy of the status quo isn’t rooted in reasoning, but rather tied up in a complicated emotional response to the fact that the United States of America is becoming less white, and more pluralistic.