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I agree with Leo Gerard. This is at least a step in the right direction with our trade laws.

SCHULTZ: Welcome back to THE ED SHOW. Tomorrow, President Obama will head to Pittsburgh to speak to union leaders at the annual AFL-CIO conference. Labor is fired up. I was there last night, had a radio town hall meeting. They‘re expecting a lot from President Obama.

The union‘s got a big victory from the Obama White House over the weekend, when the president agreed to impose temporary tariffs on tires imported from China. Union leaders say cheap Chinese tires have cost American jobs and shut down plants, and putting an import tax on them will level the playing field for American workers.

Joining me now is Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers International. Mr. Gerard, good to have you with us tonight. How bold a move was this by President Obama to go ahead and uphold the U.S. International Trade Commission‘s ruling on this? This is something the Bush administration did not do. How bold is this in your opinion?

LEO GERARD, UNITED STEELWORKERS INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT: I think it was a very important step, very important move. In fact, this is the first time a president has brought meaning for sanctions against a foreign—a foreign country since Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan did it twice. So I‘m pleased that President Obama stepped in.

We believe that this is a rule-base country. We went to the International Trade Commission and said, China‘s breaking the rules. They agreed. Now President Obama‘s agreed. I‘m very pleased.

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John Harwood lets one slip on MSNBC and tells the truth about these people fear mongering over the President speaking to school children next week.

Novotny: John, what about this controversy over opposition to Obama's speech to school children?

Harwood: I've got to tell you Monica, I've been watching politics for a long time and this is, this one is really over the top. What it shows you is there are a lot of cynical people who try to fan controversy and let's face it, in a country of three hundred million people there are a lot of stupid people too, because if you believe that's it's somehow unhealthy for kids for the President to say work hard and stay in school, you're stupid.

Novotny: Ouch.

Harwood: In fact, I'm worried for some of those kids, I'm worried for some of those kids of those parents who are upset. I'm not sure they're smart enough to raise those kids.

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Paul Krugman appeared on MSNBC to discuss his latest op-ed Republican Death Trip. Paul reiterates some of the points he made in his article.

Krugman: The way I look at it, these people are unappeaseable. It's not really about what it's ostensibly about. It's not actually about the end of life provisions. It's not about the specifics in the bill. They're just going to grab onto anything and try to turn some it into something awful. So they saw this. It seemed to have something to do with end of life and so they said, you know, death panels. It's not about the substance, and that you can't actually satisfy the crazies by offering substantive concessions. What they hate is the whole idea of any kind of health reform and more broadly what they hate is the whole idea of Democrats actually, you know, holding the White House.

Harwood: Interesting point Paul and I've got to tell you one White House official told me today, our problem right now is if we tell some of the Republican opponents in the Senate you can have everything you want in the bill, they still won't vote for it. So...

Krugman: That's right.

So why are they still reaching out to them? From the article:

The question now is how Mr. Obama will deal with the death of his postpartisan dream.

So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t named Clinton, as if they keep expecting the nonsense to just go away.

What, then, should Mr. Obama do? It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he’s gotten much better at that over the past couple of weeks.

What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.

So can Mr. Obama, who can be so eloquent when delivering a message of uplift, rise to the challenge of unreasoning, unappeasable opposition? Only time will tell.