We’re not health care experts. And even if we were, our endorsement of, or opposition to the health care reform being considered in Washington, D.C. might still fall on deaf ears. After all, plenty of health care experts have already disagreed on this highly-partisan issue.

Indeed, whether you’re a doctor or not probably has little to do with your feeling about the current efforts on national health care reform. Rather, it all comes down to whether you like President Obama or not, and here at the Sundial, we like him a lot.

Take his speech last week on education, for instance. Obama spoke at a Virginia high school in an address that was broadcast by K-12 teachers throughout the nation. The speech was addressed to America’s students.

Obama told them that in the past he’d given speeches about, “teachers’ responsibility to inspire you,” and, “parents’ responsibility to make you stay on track,” and, “your government’s responsibility for setting high standards.”

“But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world—and none of it will matter unless all of you fufill your responsibilities.”

Aside from the cuteness of Obama telling kindergartners everywhere that they need to work hard in school, we also think his message is worth revisiting, even for big kids like us.

“… at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life … that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude.”

For us, meanwhile, problems with the educational bureaucracy at California State University are no excuse for us to give up on our own individual goals.

We like Obama because he is a president who speaks to us about work ethic; he claims for liberals the old-fashioned values that conservatives had thought they had a monopoly on.

And liberal though we may be, we could use a dose of those old-fashioned values. Sometimes, for example, we do watch too much TV.

“I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work,” Obama said. “That your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.”

“But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.”

We appreciate the tough love. We’re not always ready to receive it, but on our good days, we know what he says is true. There may be corruption in our government; there may be recession in our economy; and there may be injustice semingly everywhere we look. But hard work still pays off, often enough to make it worth our while.

So for now, we wish Obama good luck with his health care plan. In him, we see at least one American working as hard as he can to make our country a better place. Duly inspired, we try to follow suit by working hard in our own small roles.

The full text of the Obama’s Sept. 8 speech to K-12 students can be found here.