Yesterday President Obama spoke to college students at the University of Maryland and, through Facebook, across the land.

After getting everyone ginned up about the awesomeness of his election, and their part in it, the president said:

There are still those in Washington who are resistant to change – who are more willing to defend the status quo than address the real concerns of the American people…. They’re still out there. We’re facing the same kind of resistance on another defining struggle of this generation – and that’s the issue of health insurance reform.

Health insurance reform is a defining struggle of this generation? What a bummer. That’s like Perfect Strangers being the defining television show of the 1980s.

To be fair, the president said insurance reform is “another” defining struggle, though it’s not clear what other defining struggle he’s referring to, unless it’s solipsistically back to his own election. He, himself, as the defining struggle.

In case you thought the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, or perhaps the greater cause of eroding support for terrorism – or, hell, even the war against the war in Iraq – was a defining struggle, you would not have the president’s agreement on that. The only time any of those movements was mentioned in the speech was when President Obama said the Iraq war added to our national debt.

The president’s odd prioritization – regulatory reform is more definitional than the survival of freedom here and abroad – is especially strange given that, also yesterday, President Obama presented Sergeant First Class Jared Monti’s parents with their late son’s Medal of Honor.

The president offered a lovely tribute to Sergeant Monti’s life and bravery, and vividly recalled how Sergeant Monti gave his life in what is truly the defining struggle of this generation.