Be sure to catch this moment from the President’s post-shutdown speech from the State Dining Room this morning:

[L]et’s work together to make government work better instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse. That’s not what the Founders of this nation envisioned when they gave us the gift of self-government. You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don’t break it. Don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That’s not being faithful to what this country’s about. [emphasis added]

After a period in which the government has been shut down and we’ve been fighting over whether that’s a positive or negative thing, it was wonderful to see the President give a paean to all the important things the federal government does and to invoke the Founders in support of function and responsibility.  Well said, Mr. President.