Nearing the symbolic 100-day mark in office, President Obama declared Tuesday the economy is moving in the right direction but also cautioned that the country is not in the clear yet.
In a speech at Georgetown University, Obama delivered “prose, not poetry,” aimed at crystallizing why this recession differed from previous ones.
Obama blamed greed and irresponsibility, not a normal downturn in the business cycle, for the current recession, and defended his administration’s aggressive actions to tackle it.
“There is no doubt that times are still tough,” Obama said. “But from where we stand,” he said, “for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope. And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of an America’s future that is far different than our troubled economic past.”

Obama’s message was enveloped in contradictory signals Tuesday about the economy’s health, but also buttressed by a contention by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the recession may be bottoming out.

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