Is Obama's Anti-business Rhetoric to be Taken Seriously? It depends on who you ask. Terence Corcoran of Canada's National Post thinks American voters should listen closely to the message behind the rhetoric and "rhythmic cadences". If they do, he asserts, they'll find the "same old stuff":

When it comes down to content, however, an Obama speech is not about change at all. It's about more of the same, more of the same old anti-corporate demagoguery, more of the same old attacks on CEO bonuses, Exxon, gouging businesses. There are ritual panderings to big labour and populist notions of free trade and NAFTA and China -- as he did in a speech on Tuesday night to an arena crowd in Madison, Wisc.

On NAFTA and trade, under which businesses "ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart," Mr. Obama is playing on the same old populist mythologies that have driven political debate in America for more than a century -- the little people versus the wealthy, the lobbyists, the powerful, profits, special interests, the privileged.

How many proud Wal-Mart workers would find that demeaning reference offensive? Mr. Obama plays off such corporate images. After mentioning Exxon's record profits and high gasoline prices, he later introduces the teacher who works at the night shift at Dunkin Donuts. Will hard-working two-job-holding Americans really take kindly to a politician who tells them their effort is an unnecessary and even futile one that can only be fixed by going after excessive CEO bonus payouts?

Yes, we have heard this before- from John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and many others. But as Corcoran notes, rarely have we heard it said and sold so well... so far.