Helluva Good Answer

Chuck Todd was guest-hosting Hardball tonight, and he showed a clip of his interview with President Obama in which he asked if Obama was frustrated by the lack of good poll numbers in light of the legislative victories he has achieved to date; the stimulus bill, health care reform, and now financial reform. Obama replied,

"No, because we were in such a deep hole that even if we get three quarters of the way out people feel that we are still in the hole."

You have to see the clip to really appreciate the response, but I don’t think I've ever seen Obama say anything that made me admire him more. He delivered that line calmly and non-defensively, with good humor, and the word that came to my mind was that he was “undaunted.”

And I think he made a good point. That we are not yet all of the way out of the hole is not reason for discouragement. We do seem to have stopped digging.