NBC's Williams Trumpets New 'Catch Phrase' from Obama: 'We Need Courage!'

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While ABC and CBS on Monday night focused on President Barack Obama's “final push” for his health care bill and the plight of Ohioan Natoma Canfield, Obama's poster woman for victims of rising health insurance premiums, NBC anchor Brian Williams touted how at “one last campaign-style rally,” in suburban Cleveland, “a shout-out from the audience gave him a chance to road test a new catch phrase: 'We need courage.'”

Viewers saw a clip of Obama bemoaning “a lot of hand-wringing going on” in Washington, DC, interrupted by a woman's voice from the audience at the Walter F. Ehrnfelt Recreation and Senior Center in Strongsville: “We need courage!” To cheers, a delighted Obama picked up on her prompt: “We need courage. That's why I came here today. We need courage!”

If “courage” as a catch phrase sounds familiar, it's the one word with which Dan Rather ended his newscasts in the mid-1980s, an ending he resurrected on Wednesday, March 9, 2005 when he signed-off forever from the CBS Evening News. (MRC CyberAlert item)

From the Monday, March 15 NBC Nightly News:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: An update tonight on where health care reform stands. The House has started preliminary votes aimed at moving a bill to a final vote by the end of this week. And President Obama traveled to Ohio for one last campaign-style rally where a shout-out from the audience gave him a chance to road test a new catch phrase: 'We need courage.'

OBAMA: There's a lot of hand-wringing going on. We hear a lot of people in Washington talking about politics, talking about what this means in November, talking about the poll numbers for Democrats, Republicans.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: We need courage!

OBAMA, TO CHEERS: We need courage. That's why I came here today. We need courage!

WILLIAMS: The President is set to leave for an already postponed trip to Asia Sunday morning. Hopes to have a bill in front of him by then, he says. He said late today he thinks the votes will be there to make it happen.