I'm a Republican and even I think the GOP whining was childish. When you become president you get to address Congress at YOUR convenience, not the opposition's.

He chose that date to directly oppose the debate. I do not know why it matters anymore. Obama will be reelected for teh same reason he was elected, not for merit, but for his race.

Have it in the Senate chamber since the House is so incompetent they can't do a security sweep in a timely manner.

Obama was just trying to pick a fight by requesting that his speech be Wednesday at the same time as Republican presidential hopefulls will be speaking knowing full well that "news" outlets would have to carry his speech and ignore the Republicans. This shows how desperate Obama really is and scared that he will be a one-term president like Carter and Bush 1.

Yeah, sure. I mean, what's the urgency, right?

I doubt anybody needs another lecture from Obama at this point.
Nobody needs another grand plan that is a non-starter. Yet, Obama will act surprised (again!) that anyone would take exception to his great ideas.
How about a one-page press release that states he has taken a small step and achieved an incremental result that all can agree on? That would be news worthy to interrupt the NFL opener.

Unfortunately he really has to. With this year's dud crop of republican candidates, if the President held an address before Congress, nobody would bother to watch their debate. As it is, only the truly hard-core are interested in listening to that group prattle on about Jesus and taxes.

The economy continues to falter yet Congress insists on its usual dysfunctional ways and bipartisan sniping.
The GOP mantra is loud and clear: To hell with the American people.

Uh, everybody knows that if it were a DEMOCRAT debate, this wouldn't be an issue.

Pure politics as usual, and this time Obama should just back off. It's a lot harder to reschedule a debate that involves a lot of people. But it appears they're more interested in saving face and creating a circus out of what should be a non-issue.

He chose that date to directly oppose the debate. I do not know why it matters anymore. Obama will be reelected for teh same reason he was elected, not for merit, but for his race

If the issue was so important (like it is) and the Administration really had a plan back before O's vacation, give the telepromt from Martha's Vinyard. Now he wants to drag 535 Members (plus others) in so that he looks "Presidential". I wonder whether the telepromter will have inserts for the President to chastise any Supreme Court justices?

The speech should be cancelled.

Basically we'll find out what kind of damage he's planning to do to the economy (in an attempt for a short term temporary fix, at best), which will help ensure the depression lasts longer than it needs to (like the never-ending New Deal did).

Is cash for clunkers "working" yet? How about TARP? QE1 or QE2, how about those? Have any bailouts "kicked in" yet? Government spending or "make work" programs? Any luck with those? Anyone see a pattern here?

Hmm, maybe we should do what Harding did for the 1920's depression, which was worse than the "great" depression if you believe the stats? (i.e. Nothing - the economy was allowed to adjust and liquidate malinvestments so resources could be re-allocated to productive uses--because the government didn't intervene to screw things up - Google it.)

So yeah, Obama shouldn't delay his speech... he should cancel it entirely.

The President should make his speech on the airwaves and interrupt programming, including the debate. Boehner is always whining. The Republicans are always whining. They seem to enjoy playing in the sty.

Having been rebuffed by Congress, this seems like a good time to give the speech directly to the people from the Oval Office, and skip giving it to Congress.

Finally some truth out of LeftLeaning. Voting for a person because of his/her race is just as racist as voting against a person because of his/her race.

This is much ado about nothing. NBC offered to delay the debate until after the President's address, which would have given the Republican candidates an opportunity to rebut his proposal. Moreover, it would have let the American people compare-and-contrast the two sides. Now no one will watch either. What a waste.

No. He is the president and he is in charge. Lets see what is up.
Amen