Are You Listening, Mr. President?

Aren't you sick of hearing about what tonight's speech means to the president's future? I am.

We can only hope and pray that the president has spent more time thinking about what his health care plan means for our future then he does about his own political fortune.

If he has, then this is what we should expect from him:

- Instead of the usual attack on insurance companies and political opponents, how about a new program of change welcomed not only by some but by most Americans?

- We should expect that the president, by invoking the memory of the late Senator Teddy Kennedy, also invokes the inspiring example of millions of equally patriotic Americans who have spoken out against the most recent reform plans, who have proven that the town hall is a worthy complement to our American Congress.

Tonight we will witness a president who seeks to balance his personal desire for transformative change against the will of the people. Buttressed and buffeted by hard-left interest groups who won him the Democratic nomination will he be able to resist their encouragement to let the public be damned-- but, instead, let them be heard? Will he be able to sacrifice a movement of change for the sake of change-- for change for the common good?

With four simple words the president can win portability, elimination of pre-existing conditions as a bar to insurance and a guarantee of health insurance when we are at our sickest. The words are-- "I hear you, America."

I hear you in St. Louis and Austin and Cincinnati. I hear you In Philadelphia, Green Bay and Little Rock. I hear you in Des Moines and Memphis and Muskogee.

It has been a long hot summer, Mr. President. Throughout August, Americans spoke out. Tonight, Americans anxiously and silently await the words of our young leader who will only prove to be a great communicator if he can prove his listening skills first.

Mr President, hear the voices of America . To pointedly ignore or to threaten a partisan solution is to defy the promise of America and dash the hopes of the schoolchildren you seek to inspire and their parents who rely on your leadership.

Mr. President-- if you reach out to take America by the hand then America will walk with you. To force a public option by exercising a nuclear option is to lose the confidence of the nation.

Peter Johnson Jr. is an attorney and FOX News legal analyst.