Although my copy of the anthology which printed this piece has long since disappeared, I am fairly certain that Mencken went on to add that Dr. Harding’s speech, as awful as it was, had a splendid effect upon those who heard it from Hardings own lips. I think Obama’s speeches are similar in effect. When one reads the text, one finds it filled with non sequiturs, circular reasoning, jarring justapositions. Here, from my files, are some examples of his oratory, delivered in August of 2007 at the Woodrow Wilson center. The comments are my own, written at that time.
A blunt threat to use diplomacy against nations that go nuclear and/or sponsor terror
“And I won’t hesitate to use the power of American diplomacy to stop countries from obtaining these weapons or sponsoring terror. The lesson of the Bush years is that not talking does not work. Go down the list of countries we’ve ignored and see how successful that strategy has been. We haven’t talked to Iran, and they continue to build their nuclear program. We haven’t talked to Syria, and they continue support for terror. We tried not talking to North Korea, and they now have enough material for 6 to 8 more nuclear weapons.”
And if diplomacy should fail, I will not hesitate to deploy literary devices such as simile and metaphor—and, in the last resort, Irony.
Quoting JFK, quoting Ted Sorenson:
“President Kennedy said it best: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.” Only by knowing your adversary can you defeat them or drive wedges between them. As President, I will work with our friend and allies, but I won’t outsource our diplomacy in Tehran to the Europeans, or our diplomacy in Pyongyang to the Chinese. I will do the careful preparation needed, and let these countries know where America stands. They will no longer have the excuse of American intransigence. They will have our terms: no support for terror and no nuclear weapons.”
He will undertake the “careful preparation” necessary to formulate an ultimatum, “no support for terror and no nuclear weapons”, which ultimatum will deprive our enemies of the excuse of American intransigence. I don’t believe that one man, acting alone, could have produced a passage of such stupifying inanity. It must have been vetted by a clutch of foreign policy advisors. I would like to know who they are.
These two examples nicely illustrate the vacuity of Obama’s thinking. But imagine them delivered with the characteristic precise enunciation, and the decisive cocks of the head. Very impressive indeed.
