Presidential speeches are tricky things. It is in the nature of things — the nature, that is, of contemporary politics — that they consist largely of more or less empty rhetorical boilerplate punctuated here and there by bursts of forthrightness that, in the usual course of things, have been carefully calibrated by a team of anxious speech writers with their eyes on the polls. George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” speech was memorable chiefly because of that memorable phrase. Ronald Reagan precipitated a cataract of liberal caterwauling when he referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” But that memorable phrase concentrated the mind. It was the same with Reagan’s speech in Berlin in 1987. Over the repeated objections of his advisers, he stood near the Berlin Wall, that ostentatious emblem of a monstrous tyranny, and forthrightly demanded that Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down that wall.”
What do we take away from President Obama’s speech about the Iraq War and the U.S. economy last night? It was — at least, it was intended to be — a major statement. A few days ago, the president had announced that the United States would forthwith be withdrawing its combat troops from Iraq. Over the last few months, it has become ever clear to the American people that the president’s vaunted “stimulus” plan has failed to stimulate anything other than continued high unemployment and staggering deficits. Here was his chance to make his case on prime time. How did he do?
I thought it one of the worst speeches in modern memory. Not only was it long on empty boilerplate, it was scrubbed clean of anything memorable or forthright. It also flirted shamelessly with incoherence. You can find the text of the whole speech here. I’d like to concentrate on the opening few paragraphs and add a few words about the denouement, such as it was, of the performance. “Tonight,” the president began, “I’d like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.” OK. Three items: the war, security threats, the dismal economic situation here in the U.S. Then what?
I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans. We have now been through nearly a decade of war. We have endured a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms, the future that we are trying to build for our nation – a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity may seem beyond our reach.
But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment. It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.
Notice the gap or chasm between these two paragraphs: “a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity” that “may seem beyond our reach” followed by . . . what? A “milestone”? What milestone? “A future of lasting peace,” etc. that may seem “beyond our reach”? Or was it the “storms” of the Iraq war and economic stagnation? Are they the “milestone”? Why, whatever it is, should that marker remind us (“all Americans”!) of anything, let alone that “the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment”? Is that really any better than Roderick Spode’s assurance (in The Code of the Woosters, I think) that “Nothing stands between us and our victory except defeat! Tomorrow is a new day! The future lies ahead!”
Why didn’t they call rewrite?
Because it was a speech designed by a govt. committee. Group think.
“It also flirted shamelessly with incoherence.” I’m pretty sure it went way past flirting and went all the way to second base!
Ha, ha, I think he scored. On himself.
Mr. Kimball, it would seem that you’re anxious for Barack Hussein Obama to say something substantive. But why would he do such a foolish thing? Every time he makes a specific, objectively testable statement, he finds himself compelled to qualify or retract it within weeks, if not days!
We’ve recently been treated to Presidential spokescreature Robert Gibbs’s tortured attempts not to state whether Obama would allow his predecessor any credit for the Iraq “surge.” Gibbs said that Obama had supported the “surge” in statements he made in 2007 and 2008 — yet those statements are available, in video, and they’re the exact reverse of what Gibbs would have us believe.
The list of Obama’s fractured campaign promises is too long for a post here at PJM. His frequent missteps when bereft of teleprompter support have told heavily against him on several occasions. He would seem to have little acquaintance with the truth. Worse, the public is now largely aware of his habit of prevarication. Ergo, to expect him to provide statements of fact or substance at this late date in his unmasking is a bet against the odds.
Francis, I love your remark! You could not had laid it out any better than that. That’s the problem with this administration is that the truth “they know not” and if we where told the truth, the majority of the American people would demand for impeachment!
Mr. Kimball:
By now you should understand that the Alleged Hawaiian is only a gifted speaker when it comes to cataloguing America’s faults, flaws and mistakes and apologizing for them.
When he has to celebrate what we have done right and what is good about this country, and specifically with it’s citizens, his much-touoted oratorical gifts completely desert him.
I was shocked that nowhere in his speech did he highlight the fact that it was American blood, treasure and political will that rid the Iraqi people of a cruel and brutal tyranny…as well as ridding the region of a regime that was rapaciously expansionist.
The Alleged Hawaiian would have served himself, (and this country), far better by reminding people of that fact instead of his apologetically defensive, (and highly revealing), line:
“…As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it”.
…this is, obviously, Obama’s attempt to wrap himself and his anti-war political base in the flag, albeit very late in the game, given his, and his partisans’ steadfast opposition to it.
I think that last night, Obama may just have delivered his version of Carter’s “malaise” speech.
In fact, I think that the Alleged Hawaiian may also have delivered his version of Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time!”
When one ponders the philosophy behind this line:
“This transition will begin — because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s.”
in the context of the mindsets of the people that we are trying to eradicate, it smells very much like a rationalization for appeassement and an excuse for surrender.
Obama displays the wilful ignorance of the moonbat Left which holds as an article of faith,(and against all evidence), that war is not the natural and proper state of humankind.
Given that war indeed IS mankind’s natural state, it follows that those who do not fight…for whatever reason…are then doomed to be conquered and eventually to become extinct.
Boilerplate declarations of pacifist idealism are not what this Republic requires of, nor desires from, the Commander-in-Chief of it’s armed forces.
Barack Obama is tempermentally and philosophically unfit to be the POTUS.
To the entire female population of Afganistan I am sorry that in the not too distant
future you will once again be transported back to the Dark Ages.
How can the women of America vote for Obama in the Future?
Roger, that was rewrite.
When committed leftists speak about their “love” of our troops, they do so through gritted teeth. If their hearts and flowers come off a bit wilted, it’s because Ted Rall and Hanoi Jane (prior to her conversion about the troops not being slimy baby-killers and rapists)are the real sentiment bubbling beneath the surface of the monotone droning about appreciation and admiration for our men and women in uniform.
Our Cambodian amnesia is in full evidence now in Iraq. The killing fields or the slaughter in the sand, is of little moment to committed leftists, who have never committed a serious tactical blunder they could not blame on someone else.
The speech was on autopilot, a drone seeking a target meandering through disjointed thoughts, but below any radar of truth or sincerity.
“I called President Bush”, …why? For advice? Express admiration for his resolve and dedication to the troops? Or to score points with independents who are abandoning the Democrats in droves, so that the bloodbath in November will be lessened?
We are bringing tens of thousands home to a jobless nation, bankrupt states, an unstimulated economy, and a government that stands against its own people. Overwhelmingly, they are coming home to become civilians…thus freeing them to be called stupid, racist, xenophobic, bitter clingers, homegrown terrorists.
As soon as they take that uniform off, they are fair game for what bubbles beneath the surface of every committed leftist. Hatred and rage. It will come pouring out as if through a sieve. The uniform kept the actual sentiment sub rosa. In your civies, the JournoList crowd will be looking for a few plate glass windows for our men and women to stand in front of, to be blindsided, slandered and trashed.
These brave men and women may be misled into believing that they have finished defending this country and its honor against those who consider them an enemy. They have no idea what awaits them here, but Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd and Keith Olbermann are about to show them as soon as they become civilians again.
They deserve better. We all do.
It should be obvious by now, that this pathetic man (Obama) has no intention of ever ‘working’ at all.
He avoids labor like it is a contagious disease. All he wants to do is take credit for others’ labor, and put his autograph on anything his cronies put in front of him.
He should be thrown out of office with great fanfare, impeached, and stripped of any and all benefits obtained by way of reaching the presidency.
WHAT AN ABSOLUTE, UNMITIGATED DISGRACE FOR A PRESIDENT!
To refine the point I would say this guy can’t work. He never learned how and at 48 (I think that’s his age), it is too late. He is incapable of working at anything.
Could the giant logo of an O or zero be a subliminal hint at what he really is a big nothing!
The only possible speech was:
“I was wrong, my whole party was wrong, Bush’ strategy was right.
We must not appease the islamic supremacists and we can win against them.
We have learned from our mistakes and we will win in Afghanistan too.
Thank you to the American Warriors.”
Instead of that speech, he blathered around.
He is certainly angry mad about this great victory against al qaeda.
The subversives and the filo-jihadists of this administration will be hard at work for the next two years to cause a defeat of Freedom in Afghanistan.
That’s all.
Do they speak this way at Harvard?: “I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans.”
Enough already with the “historic” moments; everything President 0.0 claims to do is “historic.”
Can a historic moment “come” at a time? Isn’t a moment in time, time itself? If so, from where does the moment come?.
His pathological narcissism causes him to believe that the ‘historic moment’ was his speech. Unfortunately for him, it was one of the most forgettable Presidential speeches I’ve ever heard.
And I would add, is there really anytime in history that’s not uncertain? Do any of us really, with absolute certainty, know what the future holds? It was almost as if the guy was saying ‘we are at a point in time when we can’t predict the future.’ Well, duh.
The guy came across as a blathering nincompoop, not as a strong leader who is fully in command. The buck doesn’t stop with Obama – he may have the buck, he’s really not sure, but even if he has it, he doesn’t know what to do with it.
“There’s a moment coming, it’s not here yet,not yet,,opps,it’s gone.”
-G.Carlin-
Laugh at Barry…it sure beats crying.
iraq is going to explode…soon
bojo– America is going to explode….soon.
In my business, we call that speech an execution without an idea, albeit a terrible execution.
In my business you never ever say,”I’d like to talk to you about”. What you do is find the best way you can to say whatever it is you want to say. Then do it.
Porretto’s opening sentence came so close to explaining Obama I can smell the powder burns.
On a scale as vast as the carnage to America Obama has planned and continues to execute, Obama has a huge rhetorical problem, one Hitler never had. One Stalin never had.
While the dynamically dastardly duo that I named, more evil than the double play combination of Aparicio and Fox was skilled, meant what they said, Obama is in the unenviable position at almost every turn of believing one thing and having to say another. This is the confusion and double talk you’re all so eloquently trying to wrap your minds around. He’s President of the wrong nation.
Guys, Obama’s inability to repeat the oath of office was the first major national clue that Obama doesn’t believe what he says. Like the eye moves to motion, the brain fights untruth. To the brain, it’s a dissonant note. To come unscathed out of ObamaMouth, “Preserve, protect and defend the constitution” didn’t stand a prayer.
Obama believes what Rich and Dowd and Olbermann believe. The destiny of Obama in his own mind is to transform America. Which means. To kill every ideal of freedom and free enterprise and individual rights and American Dream upon which this nation was founded more than two centuries ago. Looting our treasury in quantities of million dollar paybacks to supporters and such has destroyed any chance our children will live a better life than we. Obama has redistributed the wealth. Remember when Obama made that slip to Joe the Plumber? We’re now not just house poor. We’re values deprived. Obama believes in the national destruction of the exceptional nation that leads the free world.
In a country that believes in the supreme law of the land Obama is the exception.
He doesn’t care about following court decisions he disagrees with because he doesn’t believe in the American rule of law. He’s a constitutional lawyer who doesn’t believe in the constitution. Is that pitiable irony lost on anyone? He mocked the Supreme Court during his State of the Union Speech. And lied about why he did it. Don’t you remember? For the first time ever, a congressman yelled, “lies”. Have you forgotten when Alito mouthed, “untrue”? Now and then the truth seems does escape ObamaMouth, but when it does, it’s nasty, you can smell the stink a mile away. But most of the time Obama is telling it like it’s not.
Every knee jerk ObamaReaction is to go against the will of the American people. If there’s 70% agreement in this country about most everything, Obama’s a thirty percenter at most every turn. Hail, hail the Victory Mosque, the whole socialist, marxist gang is here. Where?
In highly paid positions in the White House, carrying out Saul Alinsky’s dictims.
The Mosque fiasco is the perfect example of Obama letting something that’s inside him escape, like-to-many-baked-beans might cause gas into a movie theatre seat. The result stinks. The American people smell the rottenness of the indecent mosque and Obama’s support of it. And they’re repelled by the odor of that ObamaTruth escaping. Some things, Obama just can’t hold in even though they egg on his face.
That campaign statement about Americans clinging to their guns and bibles is precisely what I’m talking about.
Consequently, when he’s giving a speech to the American people, the writing of it is as tortured as the delivery. Of course he’s emotionless when he speaks to us. It’s almost impossible to speak with passion about something you totally disagree with; don’t believe. Only the finest actors can pull it off. Or the best con artists.
Of course, electing Obama was a huge mistake. It’s killing the country.
The question that’s never raised on sites other than Eternity Road and Crusader Rabbit of New Zealand and, of course, PJM is just this: what to do about Obama. He’s like a guy who lied his way into the position of Pope without believing in Catholicism.
Okay, Ollie, another fine mess you’ve gotten us into. What do we do now to fix it?
Can the American people, the governed which Obama has lost the consent of, afford to use stretched legal means, albeit extra legal means, to unseat the madman who can’t say what he believes any more than OJ could admit to murder? Rachel and KG believe we can’t afford not to.
The Constitutional, political, social, economic and military ramifications are too dire; the carnage Obama leaves in his wake at every turn makes two years the equivalent of an eternity. Hitler’s reign to destroy Germany lasted twelve. Obama is aiming to destroy America in four. People, if Obama were President in 1941, we’d have lost the war. Now we have another war on our hands. If we don’t act, the blood of countless free men will be on Obama’s hands. And he’ll be cleaning his fingers off in his mouth. And reveling in the moment.
How to remove the super mole that’s set up residence in the White House. That is the question.
who ever said that this man was such a great speaker was tuned to the wrong channel.
I would never know because once I hear his voice I immediately turn off or change stations to not hear this idiot that somehow got elected as president!
Love the PGW references, Roger. Whenever I see Obama’s mug on the tube, I get this unaccountable urge to pop the little b—-r between the eyes with a soft roll….it’s only now I realize that it’s because he’s so reminiscent of one of the dimmer members of the Drones.
Sir Roderick Spode (later Lord Sidcup), had a much better writer, though.
I can understand the critique from both the left and the right on this speech, however, we must remember that the president was giving the speech mainly..as the commander in chief on a military tactical change. He also got a bit partisan in the end but he rightly acknowledged his immediate predessesor as defense is rightly, or wrongly, supposedly (until recently) bi-partisan. Remember, he was elected to solve America’s economic, military and foreign policy collapse and as he nears his mid-term, this one (and the next) have to be big on his agenda. Now, will the last one to leave town next year please remember to turn out the lights…
Correction there will not be a next term for Obama be will either resign, be impeached or have something incapacitate him before 2012, he is after all the WORST to ever hold the office of all before him including Carter!
(Stagflation (also the misery index) a new term used to explain his awful economic policies and also others like national 55 MPH speed limits and all that stuff like gasoline rationing and going from $.35 per gallon to over $1.00 per gallon in less than two months, yeah that awful president).
Good grief, you guys are silly. It was not a great speech, but it was not a terrible one either. The guy fell all over himself to honor the troops, re-affirm our commitment, blah, blah. Then we get to hear even sillier stuff spouted here. Maybe Obama could have called Rush, Sarah, and Glenn the axis of evil and we would really have something to discuss
Carry on.
Yea,he fell all over himself alright….but not out of praising the troops who he despises like most doctrinaire lefties…and not because he believed that a tyrant like Saddam should have been removed from power….he did it trying to pat himself on the back again and show us how wonderful he is in spite of clear evidence to the contrary
Fell all over himself? Really? Well, let me give some guidelines so you know what “falling over oneself” really is.
How about some personal anecdotes which describe the tremendously difficult situations our troops overcame, and the brutal conditions in which they did it? How about some stories of heroism? Of sacrifice? And how it was worth it in the end?
How about giving Bush credit for standing tall when he stood alone on Iraq? How about a little mea culpa? How about saying that he never believed the Surge would succeed, but clearly it has? How about giving Gen. Petraeus a CMH for concocting and executing the plan to achieve this great victory? How about even calling it a great victory? How about decrying those shameful ads calling Petraeus, “Betray-us”?
I am only getting warmed up here, but you can get the picture. This was tepid soup. The troops deserve better. They, and Bush, deserve a full-throated thank you from their President. Is that too danged much to ask, Dwight? Well, if you’re a Leftist… yes, it is.
Oh please, can we have a little reality here? Given the context of his previous positions, I hardly see how you could expect more. Let’s assume that he had come out with: “As it turns out, President Bush was right, and I was wrong about the surge…etc”
How many of the people here would have said, “You know, this Obama is not such a bad guy”?
In this unfortunate time in American politics, he would have lost more from his left than he would have gained on the right. Would it have been more interesting if he had said the above? Yes. But the level at which he did affirm support for and appreciation of the troops is simply being ignored here because it does not suit your agenda.
”We must jumpstart industries that create jobs,” and then unionize them.
“We must end our dependence on foreign oil,” while still not drilling in the Gulf.
“We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines,” then tax & regulate the hell out of them.
How do you jump start a dead battery with an even deader battery? You can’t but they are still trying the same old krap that doesn’t work? As the old saying goes you can’t make chicken soup out of chicken shit!
“…you can’t make chicken soup out of chicken shit!”
Well, you can, but it tastes awful.
I read the paragraph the first time and almost immediately asked myself: What is he talking about? I feel reassured that your explanation reinforced my first impression.
Has anyone told this man that we’re not the soaring rhetoric is for campaigns and that he’s President now. We’d actually like to hear speeches that make sense.
I accidentally listened to his pathetic speech. Mark Levin had it on and commented on it later.
My comment: An empty suit is an empty suit is an empty suit.
At the risk of repeating myself yet again… Whatever Obama says is said to advance a specific ideological goal, or to promote his idea of his own grandeur. Every moment Obama is engaged in is “historic” in Obama’s mind simply because he is in it. Running away from a conflict is portrayed as heroic leadership because Obama believes that speaking it will cause people to believe it.
I long ago gave up listening to anything this man says, because for him words are merely tools to achieve an end, they have no actual bearing on his beliefs, his goals or his veracity. He simply says what he thinks he has to say to continue to execute his free market killing agenda. This is why he can say “you can keep your health plan” when describing a plan whose very purpose is to kill the majority of existing plans and put new plans under the heel of Federal bureaucracy. He KNOWS he’s lying, but that’s completely beside the point. He HAS to lie to get his goals accomplished. So he embraces lying as one of his key strategic weapons.
People who search his prepared words for meaning or for some indication of his intent are foolish. The only time Obama’s words reveal his intent is when he is caught off-guard, off-message and off-teleprompter.
Those are the ONLY times his words have the slightest chance of providing any real guidance about his intentions.
I thought the best means of dealing with it was pure camp.
When the president says, “We must jumpstart industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil” he is using codespeak to talk about the so-called green economy. Obama wants to redistribute money from real industry to the make-believe industry of people coming to my home to weatherstrip my windows.
I would like a program to weatherstrip all of his orifices!
I heard this very loudly: “Operation Iraqi Freedom is over.” I felt like he was throwing them to the lions.
It’s name change to “Operation New Dawn”…
When he made that pivot from the war to spend-more economic policy– obviously the subject he feels more comfortable with– I couldn’t help but think of a phrase by a leftist (Leon Trotsky) who knew how to speak memorably, unlike our president: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Tear down THIS wall. Not that wall.
Bravo the references to P.G. Wodehouse. I can see that Roger “if not actually disgruntled, . . . (is) far from being gruntled.” Scratch that. He’s disgruntled.
Although etymologically, Gruntled and Disgruntled both have the same meaning, which is ‘unhappy’ …
“I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans. We have now been through nearly a decade of war. We have endured a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms, the future that we are trying to build for our nation – a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity may seem beyond our reach.
But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment. It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.”
What is missing between those two vacuous paragraphs is the WHY the “milestone should serve as a reminder” and “as a message”.
It did, in a way, but you have to know how to decipher the code. The code is one of saying nothing, or very little, but making it sound like quite a bit — to those who enthusiastically modify the words somewhere between the audible reception, and the mental process.
To those who wish to believe, it was a great speech, full of progress.
To the naysayers, it was a collection of voids.
In other words he said in many words something that really means nothing at all! What do you expect from a guy that made a logo out of nothing and is in fact nothing at all himself, the hell of it is that he is president!!!
President Obama’s second Oval Office speech was meant to regain traction for the midterms; however, it did nothing of a sort. All the speech did was remind us how small President Obama is in the Oval Office, despite the multitude of pictures of his family. His family are the only ones left who support Obama & the Obama Democrats, aside from the Leftist shills in the MSM, the Unions, & his Inner Circle of Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, David Plouffe, & Robert Gibbs. Obama is a boring, listless fool who is too late to see that a political shockwave is coming this November, heading his direction.
As a far-flung Britisher I note with unqualified admiration this link to the Spode story.
My own take on the speech (as seen from the point of view of Technique, rather than Substance) is here: http://charlescrawford.biz/blog/president-obama-s-musty-speech-on-iraq
The long list of exhortatory ‘musts’ in the speech does create a rather surreal impression.
I think that the entire essence of Obama’s speech is summarized in his phrase “… beyond our reach.” This is the real message that he is trying to convey – whatever hopes we held of remaining a global leader, well, those are beyond our reach, whatever hopes we had of handing prosperity down to our children, well those are beyond our reach. All of the hopes and dreams you held yesterday are about to be transformed – those old hopes are now beyond our reach.
We can only hope that this is not the case.
the guy is a leftist. he must speak the leftist cant:
We have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas. This, in turn, has short-changed investments in our own people, and contributed to record deficits.
got it…it is bush’s fault you morons
As a result, too many middle class families find themselves working harder for less, while our nation’s long-term competitiveness is put at risk.
bush=hoover
Now, it is our turn. Now, it is our responsibility to honor them by coming together, all of us, and working to secure the dream that so many generations have fought for -the dream that a better life awaits anyone who is willing to work for it and reach for it.
We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines,
hmmmmm….Jonah Goldberg really didn’t like this speech. I wonder why?
Hey what has taken place over the last 18 months is only making matters worse, please go talk to those that are unemployed lately by the policies of this stupid and awful president and then as you watch more businesses close thanks to the health care (for free…that is not) and new taxes go somewhere and learn about a robust economy and how to achieve it)! You are indeed dreaming if you think the policies of this badministration help this country then I must ask are you are insane or very misguided!
Bush had deficits, but the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan did not even reach the deficit (caused by spending in congress with the approval of the president in this case president zero or Hollow Man)! Here is an interesting link http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2009/01/29/us-stimulus-to-cost-more-than-iraq-afghan-war-so-far/ for you to visit, or this link http://nathanstudy.blogspot.com/2009/02/cost-of-stimulus-compared-to-iraq-war.html or if you wish you can go here (it even has a bar graph for clarity)! http://nathanstudy.blogspot.com/2009/02/cost-of-stimulus-compared-to-iraq-war.html
Please be more informed when you come to this site and have factual information with at least three sources to back up what you write about or you will get slapped down like you just did in my response!
Obama should have given the “standard speech”. Time-tested and short.
It sums up the liberal position: Life is troubling; We will save you; It will take some time, cost some money, and require your full cooperation.
From –> A Political Speech: Troubling Times
Wodehouse quotations befitting Obama:
P. G. Wodehouse, Uneasy Money
Roger,
Obama’s speech was an attempt to verbalize all the favorite focus-group keywords that his team could come up with. However, those words were so unoriginal and contrived that Obama was unable to perform.
All evidence suggests that Obama does not believe in that speech. Iraq is not his war, and he desperately wanted to speak his mind, but he could not for political reasons.
This speech ends in a series of platitudes — the only way Obama could ‘gracefully’ exit from subject matter that is uncomfortable for him. He seeks comfort in platitudes because no one can challenge them, and he thinks he is establishing emotional rapport with his constituents by repeating them.
What did we learn from the content and execution of this speech? The conclusion is that Obama is weak, both intellectually, and as an orator. He only performs well when he has an emotional attachment to his subject matter and his audience. In short, Obama is a simply a cheerleader, not the objective and wise ‘leader’ that he plays on TV…
So you mean the his big O logo is turning into a zero like the empty suit he really is…good insight there!
Mostly just a collection of nice-sounding but empty phrases strung together.
Obama has known for 2 decades that he cannot say what he really thinks at any level higher than his old IL State Senate seat, because what he really thinks is somewhere between objectionable and anathema to a considerable majority of voters. OTOH, he has to maintain his bona fides with the odd 25-35% who agree with him and constantly seek validation, so he walks a fine line by saying little of substance and just pursuing his narrow goals while pretending to be serving the broader interests of teh nation, and counting on the media and others in the chattering class to run interference for him.
First rate people hire first rate people. Second rate people hire third rate people. Third rate people usually aren’t in a position to hire anyone, but when they are, they hire the kinds of people who write these speeches.
So that is what an affirmative action Harvard education begets. Incoherence. A lack of substance. Do they even teach American history and the Constitution in the ivies?
Do they know what it means to be an American?
He has publicly said he doesn’t like our constitution.
He has publicly said he doesn’t like most of us.
He has publicly said that our country isn’t very nice.
He has publicly expressed his disdain for almost everything that is precious and factual about this nation.
I don’t like him either.
Our military’s evident lack of support of their CIC(they’re being lectured recently about acting more interested in him) is evidence of their sound judgment. There’s no reason they should support him. He doesn’t support them.
Here, let me fix it for you.
I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Democrats. This is the first time that a generic poll has Republicans up by this much and we are only two months from serious blowback on our failed policies. Don’t fret…you got me.
We have now been through nearly 18 months of a war against our own people. We have called them stupid, racist, and trashed them every chance we had. Now, it’s time to pull a little razzle dazzle. We have endured a long and painful recession, and there’s more where that come from.
So, I’m going to serve up a little patriotism today, talk about the troops, hell, these rubes are so stupid, I’ll even pretend to make a meaningful call to W. The independents and moderates will eat that up. It makes me look “bipartisan” and “inclusive” and all the phony things we used during the campaign.
On Wednesday, I’m going to sew up a little Jewish support. They have been getting a little nervous about my playing cozy toes with Israel hating extremists, so…we need to cement that 70% back into place before November.
The “professional left” is going to love my bringing the troops home. That ought to buy us enough chits to have them conspire against the teabaggers for a couple of months. I will say just enough to convince the middle that I’m honoring the troops, but without any emotion, so the professional left will back the play. Hell, when they take their uniforms off and come home, they’re just ignorant clingers, anyway.
But this maneuver should serve as a reminder to all lefists that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment. It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leftism in this young century”
I wonder if anyone in the WH remembers how Senator/candidate Obama privately urged PM Maliki to postpone any troop withdrawal agreements until there was a new president, presumably him. Or how Senator/candidate Obama said the surge was an unequivocal failure even as it was succeeding. Or how candidate Obama promised to bring all Iraq combat troops home by May 20, 2010. Or how Senator/candidate Obama credited the Sunni sheiks instead of the troops and their commanders for the quell in violence while suggesting the surge had, in fact, exacerbated that violence. Or how candidate Obama had to purge his website of all that criticism when it became clear that the surge had succeeded beyond expectation. Probably not.
Interesting new tack, though, inferring the war caused our economic collapse at home and is responsible for our huge deficits and debt. A way to blame Bush without directly blaming Bush.
The speech: badly conceived, badly written, badly delivered. The Palin Orwell tweet, on the other hand, was a gem.
Sorrrrry My giveAdamn circuit fried about 12 months ago. I seem to be otherwise occupied…..
Why do presidential speechwriters (and, ahem, bloggers, for that matter) insist on using the phrase “I’d like to…” in a speech intro?
Be direct. Don’t tell us what you’d “like” to do when we all know you’re going to say what’s on the prompter — with or without our permission — in the remainder of the speech.
Just say it and save me the niceties.
Obama only cares about one thing — racial revenge. That is why his Iraq speech was bloodless. He doesn’t care.
Talking to a liberal friend the other day, about the candidates running for Governor of Hawaii. The Republican candidate, Duke Aiona, is an attorney and was a sitting judge, not to mention a two term Lt. Gov. My liberal friend who thinks Obama is the “Most qualified president we have ever had”, says the Rep candidate is entirely unqualified. It just makes my head spin.
It’s no use really in analyzing most of what comes from the mouth and minds of liberals anymore, I think. There is an artfulness that they can possess, yes, but the end-game of their ideas are ALL bits and pieces of propaganda in pursuit of some utopian dream – the way things aught to be disease. Bits and pieces of Something that is predicated on natural, corruptible man’s condition that is easily understood, fomented, and extrapolated into even by the Simple: Socialisms, redistributions of wealth, government as law-giver, rejection of spiritual knowledge – that man is no more worthy or ruddy than bacteria on a log, and we must organize our collective minds according to this Concept.
For conservatives, which are the more open-minded class (of facing reality and dealing with it), it is, I do believe at first, difficult to conclude that all liberals are truly (all comedy aside) simple-minded people, who are ultimately dangerous, and must be condemned. Is it necessary to note that Understanding, Truth, Reason, Love, Hate, and all other invisible attributes of life are indeed attributes of Reality?
We want to believe, as common vestige of theirs and our own humanity (whether good or bad), that they are conniving or manipulating, well-intentioned or charismatic (and they are this to a certain extent – and these are signs of complexity, indeed), but what I find is that they are, overall, not capable of reasoning correctly at a fundamental level. Our similarities are superficial, and our divergence early. Whether a person is outright manipulative or well-intentioned and simple matters little when there is no way to interact with them in Understanding. Sure, this can cut both ways, as far as the “perspective”, but it is also an impasse, and I do not know of any impasses that do not result in physical conflicts or new borders.
Modern liberals tear down. They ride the coattails of those who build and defend. They are leaches that patronize sympathy. And as they become more and more emboldened and crass (now with their backs to November and further) I feel less and less need to humanize and reason with them. If Humanizing and Reasoning are pillars of sympathy, Where is the sympathy? – it is ceasing to be a factor. Do not be succored into thinking that Liberals will slink into that good night after November 2, or 2012 – they will fight tooth and nail until their thinking is abolished. The Bible teaches that ALL rebellion is witchcraft.
It is said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. What have we forgotten about the Civil War? It is not the oppression of slavery (though, this may have it’s representation currently in illegal Mexican labor, with their lowly generations to follow… work yourself out of poverty much?) …What we have forgotten is how people of the same house, the same country – brother against brother – can find themselves with only violent means of resolution. The division in America is ceasing to be about so called “states-rights”, constitutional limits of government, religious attitude, or economic policies (though, these would be singly touted in such history books to come as sole causes of a second Civil War or breaking up of America), and is becoming the more poignant and impossible to capture in History’s past the “we cannot live with each other” sentiment. So, we living in it will know it was all of the above.
Kevin B, I was trying to follow your commentary until I came across, “The Bible teaches that ALL rebellion is witchcraft.” First, I don’t recall that quote in the Bible. Second, I don’t see how it fits into your commentary. Third; could you be talking about the American Revolution? Is it possible that “liberals” have trouble communicating with you, because it is often unclear what the hell your meaning is?
” *For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft*, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” 1 Samuel 15:23.
(I read the Bible from cover to cover this year. Even though a lot of people, especially atheists (go figure) claim they have read it it is probably more rare than is claimed – that is my thinking from the experience. It’s difficult to not give up when trying to read the prophets.)
I definitely mean the Civil War, but maybe think of it as the alternate-universe second American Civil War. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong about it though, as that seems like a stretch when I write it out. You have to look at the important symbols and the Wanting, not exact parallels. One side wanted to keep their cheap labor: we have Barack as president who is a false negative of Abraham Lincoln, wanting to effect society in a large way: the country is dividing along ideological and religious lines. It’s sort of like a Dark Civil War – perhaps, even with no old-school violence but only that which is in our hearts – with a Dark Union where the leader Barack is amassing his army of racists and statists to quash the sovereignty of the Limited Government “South”. I came to this thinking when Barack stood with Mexico’s president in condemning Arizona’s law as racist (which stirred the public), but his DoJ sued based on pre-emption of federal law instead. It does feel like America has entered into some kind of alternate universe since Barack’s swearing in was botched, to me. The original swearing in was junked, and the second (to ensure it all) took place behind closed doors with apparently no Bible. With so many bad omens I’m just trying to see what might fit.
I thought I would throw it out there, this idea, but maybe it is just standard encroachment of government.
The thing is, even if they did call for a rewrite it wouldn’t have mattered, thanks to one James J. Lee pushing Obama’s speech clear out of the headlines less than 24 hours later.
In the space of a couple of hours Lee did more to set back the “progressive” cause than Obama and his speechwriters could hope to make up for even with a year’s worth of knock-’em-dead speeches.
The biggest insult for me was his less than honest praise of our fighting men and women. Any praise from him for their sacrifices rings hollow as long as Jodie Evans (Code Pink)is a welcomed visitor to the Democratic leadership and White House. Her assaults and transgressions against the troops and their families is a disgusting insult to the American people, his failure to condemn her actions is a telling look into his heart.
‘We have now been through nearly a decade of war.’
How has Obama been at war? Did he have a golf game interrupted by a briefing? As seen on a whiteboard in Iraq: The marines are at war, America is at the mall. Too bad that Obama and the democrats not only failed to make a positive contribution; they actually hampered the war effort.
Daran, the quote you list is just another indirect insult of President Bush. Obama cannot help himself. Everything is Bush’s fault.
Obama is immature and this speech, among others, only serves to prove how poorly he is prepared for the job he is now holding. He is a poor diplomat, at best. He is severely ill prepared for political work and being a politician has shown a bright light on his incompetence. He doesn’t understand people or Americans. He has no concept of economics or the interface between the economy and government. He is driven by ideology only. And his ideas and policies reflect that one dimensional aspect of his approach in all arenas of his administration.
Now, this isn’t a confession, but I don’t agree with much of the POTUS’s direction or his methods. But I can make observations of behavior and actions and determine what “is” happening and what is not.
You could say the same thing for your column
As has been noted, BHO is Bush’s Fault and there is nothing we can do about it until the next ‘lection…
Obama is now what he has always been – Empty Suit with Empty Talk…