Nice speech, Mr. President.

Of course, that was pretty much what was expected, isn’t it?

This was Barack Obama in his element. Faced with a crisis, battered by recent political setbacks, he would fall fack on the one given about his presidency – the man can flat-out give a speech.

But this was a different Obama, clearly a more modest one, a politician who has taken his lumps after a couple of games of ‘hardball.’

Obama talked a lot about jobs, and less about health care, not that he’s abandoning what his been the signature issue of the first year of his presidency.

But he clearly has heard the public. They angry – and worried. Too many of them are out of work. And they’re wondering when the jobs are going to start coming back.

What they did not need to hear was the nearly non-stop ovations that interrupted the president’s speech.

By most counts, Obama was interrupted 68 times.

Was this the State of the Union, or the Academy Awards?

Actually, it might have been a combination of the two, with Congress looking to capture best performance in a supporting role.

And the best actor award? That one is still to be decided. Obama has three more years to grab the statue.