Opinion: Obama news conference: Economic recovery ‘will take time’
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It’s well-known that President Obama is an admirer of Abraham Lincoln. The nation’s 16th president is clearly a favorite of Obama’s speechwriters, such as Jon Favreau, based on the remarks Obama just delivered in his second White House press conference.
Lincoln gave us the immortal line about ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people.’ Which might explain the repeated (pardon the pun) use of repetition in the president’s remarks. On rebuilding the economy, the president said (with emphasis added):
That’s what clean-energy jobs and businesses will do. That’s what a highly skilled workforce will do. That’s what an efficient healthcare system that controls costs and entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid will do. That’s why this budget is inseparable from this recovery –- because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity.
And he wasn’t done. Not done at all, as he offered these encouraging words:
We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have to each other -– that’s when we succeed. That’s when we prosper. And that’s what is needed right now. So let us look toward the future with a renewed sense of common purpose, a renewed determination, and most importantly, a renewed confidence that a better day will come.
-- Steve Padilla
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a prime time news conference in the East Room of the White House March 24, 2009 in Washington, DC. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images