Reader Phillip weighs in:
Note the difference between the GOP mandate and the Obama mandate:
"...we have a mandate to move the country in a new direction..."
Obama claims a mandate to move the country in a particular direction, his mandate is a vector quantity as it has magnitude and direction. He campaigned for health care, he has a mandate for health care. Bush claimed a personal mandate, a scalar quantity. He had made no mention of his plans to phase out Social Security in the campaign but claimed a mandate for them afterward.
The other distinction is that Bush interprets a mandate as permission while Obama interprets a mandate as an order. The beltway folk telling him that he should delay health care till the mid-terms or re-election are acting as if not acting on health care is the easy choice. Obama is saying that he has made a commitment and intends to fullfil it.
