All of us will be assessing President Obama's speech on health care more extensively in the next few days, but here are my early thoughts.

In our house, as we waited for the president's speech, we asked each other what we hoped he would say. And we agreed: We hoped he would tell us what he hasn't told us before. What does the president want? What does he think we need? What is he willing to fight for?

I think he did some of that in the speech to Congress. I can't say. though, that he laid out, specifically, what he is willing to fight for. There weren't a lot of specifics. And there were some promises that I don't think he can keep. 1) That the plan he wants (details to come) will not raise the deficit. 2) That he can pay for reform, in large part, by cutting waste. This is the common political promise. There certainly is waste (some of us think a lot of it is in the bureaucracy of the insurance industry). But is there enough to pay for expanding health care? We'll see.

One of the biggest problems with our health care is the escalating cost. Obama didn't talk a lot tonight about cost control. And that's a major fault of all of the plans being discussed. If we simply increase the number of people covered by insurance but don't deal with the cost, we'll make the problem worse.

That said, it was a strong speech. I wish his attack on the critics had come sooner. But he made it tonight, showing the boldness and strength that he showed sometimes during the presidential campaign. He stood up, at last, as the leader of the push for health-care reform, refuting the lies that critics have spread and insisting that he will continue to punch back.

And I was glad that he invoked the memory of Senator Ted Kennedy. "What we face is above all a moral issue," he said, repeating Kennedy. He talked about "the fundamental principles of social justice," "the character of our country."

Obama noted the American tradition of independence and suspicion of government, but he added that traditionally we have agreed "that sometimes government has to step in."

"Our predecessors understood that government could not and should not solve every problem," he said, "but the danger of too much government is matched by too little."

"I still believe we can act when it's hard," he said, "that we can do great things. Because that's who we are. That is our character."

That's his description of the American people. I hope he's right. Over the next few weeks, we may find out.