Prez Must Get Tough, Not Just Talk Tough

President Obama is going to have to recapture the political initiative with substance instead of style, writes Eugene Robinson. Obama—despite his modest upbringing—is never going to have the guy-next-door touch George W. Bush had, so he should focus on making his actions match his words instead of trying to turn populist, Robinson writes in the Washington Post.

Obama needs to show some passion in explaining the benefits the stimulus package has brought to America and—if issues like health care reform are as vital as he says they are—he needs to fight Republican obstructionism instead of giving in to it. "It's not enough to use variations of the word 'fight' more than 20 times in relatively brief remarks" like he did in Ohio Friday, Robinson writes. "He needs to—metaphorically, of course—actually slug somebody." (More Eugene Robinson stories.)