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Keller @ Large: Obama Shifts Gears

BOSTON (CBS) - For those who love golden oldies, last night's state of the union address by President Obama was a real blast from the past.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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From the sincere delivery to the soothing centrism, if you closed your eyes you could almost imagine good ole Bill Clinton up there charming the daylights out of the nation. And short of saying right out that "the era of big government is over," the content could have been from a post-1994 Clinton speech as well.

And no wonder. It's déjà vu all over again for the Democrats in Washington, their lunge to the left roundly repudiated in an off-year election and their leader wisely heeding the voters and retreating to the center.

Yes, President Obama warned he wasn't backing away from the new health care law, and he pushed once again for amnesty for illegal alien college students. But you'd have to be a real Obama-hating conservative to disapprove of his call for budget cuts, tax cuts, more education reform, and more democracy around the world. In fact, the angriest members of the audience for that speech ought to be liberals who thought the president was going to jack up corporate taxes, close the military prison at Guantanomo Bay, pull all US troops out of Afghanistan, and impose cap and trade laws as part of a war on global warming. None of that stuff is happening, and some of it didn't even get mentioned by the president last night.

If you are one of those ultra-suspicious voters who is convinced this is all wolf in sheep's clothing stuff, that the president is an ultra-liberal just waiting to get his political momentum back, I respect your skepticism, but I disagree.

Yes, he's a pol – news bulletin, they all are. But the thing about pols is they can read election results. The voters said shift gears, and President Obama is shifting gears, for now at least. I call that democracy in action, and a cause for cautious celebration, not suspicious contempt.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

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