What does it take?

I wish Obama would begin to act as if the country were facing an emergency. Maybe he'd do things like put hundreds of thousands on BP's payroll to clean up the mess. Maybe he'd follow the Manhattan Project model and gather scientists in a remote spot to get us off the oil energy standard ASAP. We have the brains and brawn to do all of this. What we lack is will and especially leadership. The tragedy is that Obama has the rare rhetorical gifts that could make this work. He could inspire the country.