DANIEL J. MITCHELL: Obama’s Failed Response to the Downgrade and the Outlook for Fixing America’s Spending Crisis. “President Obama just spoke about the downgrade and his remarks were very disappointing. He uttered some empty platitudes, offered no plan, (amazingly) called for more government spending, and continued his advocacy of class-warfare taxation.”
UPDATE: “Horrifyingly bad.” “He was a half hour late. His head turned from side to side as if he were attending a tennis match. He practically never looked in the camera, as if he were averting our gaze. And those were the strong parts of President Obama’s disastrous speech. It was a bit like a slow-motion car crash. After a while, one stopped listening to the blather and simply watched the stock ticker go down and down. And down some more.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: More reactions. “These were President Obama’s first remarks since the credit downgrade last Friday. While he did not specifically blame the Tea Party as his allies have, he did suggest that they are to blame by invoking ‘gridlock’ as one of the downgrade’s causes. While the president spoke, the markets continued to slide downward.”