The message here is that anyone who questions the link between wildfires and global warming is a) anti-science and b) doesn’t care about children or the future. They are presumably too busy burning witches or trying to turn base metals in to gold to do anything for their country. Well, if the Republicans won’t work on a bipartisan solution (read, the one endorsed by Obama), then he’ll just use his executive action to do it for them. As one wit pointed out on Twitter, the driest drinking game in the world would be to knock back a shot every time Obama mentions the Constitution.
Obama’s inability to avoid playing politics colours even his noblest rhetoric. At the end of the speech he touched upon gun control – an issue around which a consensus will eventually be forged – and called for Congressional action. He listed the names of several victims of gun crime and said after each one, “they deserve a vote.” It’s a fine piece of speechifying and a strong moral message. But it’s also designed to emotionally blackmail and humiliate opponents of the President’s preferred form of gun control. What is so frustrating about Obama is his attempt both to speak to America’s better nature and exploit its deepest fears – without any apparent awareness of the contradition. He wants to be Lincoln and Machiavelli all at once. He often gets away with it.
People who work for news organizations can still see this president for what he his. They just can’t work here.
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