Liveblogging Obama’s speech
If I can do the Oscars, why not this?
First up—Michelle, great dress. Kudos.
I have to say it—Rahm Emmanuel’s a good-looking guy.
Obama comes to the podium, the place where he’s most comfortable. Who’s that behind him—Joe Biden? Is he still around? In his eagerness to speak, Obama upstages Nancy Pelosi, who gives him a little tap to let him know she has to introduce him. Shades of the inaugural and Roberts.
We start with the bad stuff again—and apparently he’s been reading neo-neocon, because he says “we will…” and then a string of good stuff.
If we import so much oil, and it’s such a problem, Obama, why don’t you go for the obvious solution?
The bad loans—but no mention of the Democrat (and Acorn) responsibility for pushing them. No surprise there, I suppose.
This laundry list business is difficult for the non-auditory-processor to listen to.
No, of course not, you don’t believe in big government. It was thrust upon you.
How will the American people as a whole respond to this—those who are watching, that is? Well, since most still seem to approve of Obama and trust him, my guess is that this speech will remind them of what they like about him.
Joe Biden, tough head of the tough oversight committee, to make sure the Democrats don’t overdo? Oh, my goodness.
Finally we’re getting to what I’m interested in—the credit crisis. I’d also love to hear what he intends to do about separating out the bad paper from the good. But I hear nothing but nonspecific generalities.
He reads the riot act to those mean old CEOs, the villains of the piece. Obama will keep them in line.
And he nearly apologizes for helping banks—“it’s not about helping banks, it’s about helping people.”
“Slowly but surely, confidence will return, and our economy will recover.” If you say so. It ain’t Churchill, nor is it FDR, but at least it’s better than the crisis-laden gloom. The truth will be in the details, and the results—good or bad.
He rejects those saying government has no role in the recovery. But who’s saying that, except for the most extreme libertarians? Nobody.
“Time for America to lead again”—I’ll drink to that.
Yep, we need clean, renewable energy. So Obama, how about nuclear power? I don’t hear it on your list. The items I do hear are not going to be enough, you know. But isn’t it pretty to think so?
I don’t recall this laundry-list style of speechmaking prior to Bill Clinton, who was the champion of the genre. But here it is again. Has Obama changed speechwriters?
The recovery plan had no earmarks? Wow. Even if that’s technically correct (and I don’t know whether it is or not), the bill certainly didn’t lack for pork or special interest grants that have nothing to do with the goal of stimulating the economy.
A pox on all those 250K households!
“I will not allow terrorists to plot against America…” Boy, is this guy ever full of himself.
Just how does this speech differ from a State of the Union message? I thought it was supposed to be about the economy. It’s all over the place, and loaded with cliches. I wonder why that surprises me.
I’m not watching. As I said elsewhere last night, I’ll find out all I need to know about about it by reading the internet.
I should’ve sold my mutual funds last Sep when my sweetie told me to.
🙁 ;( 🙁
Lordy he does not understand macro-economics 101.
Cost in health care will NOT come down with liberal democrat policies.
Look people. I care. I care about people. I care about our future. I care about America.
If the issue is cost – the liberal democrat policies will be exacerbating cost – and driving up rationing of health care.
I will get all the information about it from the alternate media. I don’t do Obonga speeches. As soon as NCIS was over the wife and kids were off to bed and I tuned in to the Boston Bruins vs. Florida Panthers. Better use of my time. A lot more entertaining and, finally that the losing streak is over for the B’s, more enjoyable.
I’m trying to keep my blood pressure down these days. Work has been stressful, in part, because of HIM. So, listening to that long legged mack daddy wax poetic is not at all a soothing experience for me.
FredHjr: would you please email me? I’ve got a question for you.
I don’t think this will sell. Carbon cap & trade plus Health Care “reform” plus higher taxes on 5% of individuals and corporations.
Getting rid of “cold war weapons systems. that we don’t use” Is that a euphemism for nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defense?
Most of it was a rhetorical exercise that showed very little first hand knowledge of anything. He just reworked the cliches of Washington speech (“opening the doors of opportunity”). Neither did it have much of a dramatic arc. Vapid, I thought, and ultimately empty talk.
American Power tracked-back with, “Obama’s State of the Union”:
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/obamas-state-of-union.html
It does?
Just a couple of thoughts on “the speech”.
Looking around at the smiling, triumphant, self-satisfied, dem faces, I realized that even under the most castastrophic scenario these people would still retain their healthcare and six digit incomes.
It reminded me of how the socialist/communist ruling class always manage to fare better than the masses.
Finally, who was that bleached-blonde, overly botoxed, surf bunny, if not the golden state’s own Barbara Boxer?
Doubt I’ve missed more than a small handful of presidential addresses since the early days of Reagan. I kept that string going even through the Clinton years. 🙂 Somehow always felt it was my ‘patriotic duty’ to tune in….he is The President and if he has something to say I owe him my attention sort of thing. Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver was the last straw for me. Yes he is a terrific orater, if only I could believe anything he has to say. Like many others here I will depend on net sources to give me the gist of it later. And whatever that is…..I know I won’t like it!
“If the issue is cost – the liberal democrat policies will be exacerbating cost – and driving up rationing of health care.” Baklava
The issue is ‘fairness’, the premise is that its unfair that the Bill Gates of the world can obtain a higher level of care than thee or me…the problem is that liberals cannot accept reality.
The speech did not surprise me at all. It was a continuation of his high sounding campaign rhetoric that sounds good until……….. you stop to think about what the cost of all those programs is going to be. His ideas are mostly pie in the sky, feel good, look at me and what I can give you promises. The awful thing is that the democratic Congress will try to deliver the programs sans the spending cuts. And therein lies the problem. For the next two years the dems and POTUS Obama may run wild. Lord, preserve us!
His attacks on CEOs; his unworkable, naive ideas about energy; his tax increases on “the rich;” his vows to cut defense spending (While raising pay and benefits for the military. – They don’t need weapons if they’re well paid?), and his desire to increase financial regulations may not go down so well with Wall St. Does the decline continue tomorrow??
So articulate, so graceful, so confident, so charismatic. Such empty words.
If he wants to cancel missile defense, that is flat-out treason.
“Looking around at the smiling, triumphant, self-satisfied, dem faces, I realized that even under the most castastrophic scenario these people would still retain their healthcare and six digit incomes.
It reminded me of how the socialist/communist ruling class always manage to fare better than the masses.”
Exactly…
It occurs to me that Obama hasn’t realized that being President is like being a community organizer but with real responsibilities. He still wants to get other people’s money to throw at a problem and pass on the actual accomplishment to someone else. He admonishes all the kids to go to some kind of college but has no plan for accomplishing this other than making money available for a “program”, run by somebody from the neighborhood. It hasn’t dawn on him yet that an executive is a doer not an idea man. An executive inspires change but also must implement that change. Otherwise, you end up with a pavilion on a vacant lot where the inspiration for a park once was.
JKB,
Even if the exec could be an idea man, Barry would still fail miserably. What I heard before exceeding my blah, blah, blah limit was the output of a community organizer in his first week on the job: lots of fantasy based on no understanding and no desire to gain that understanding. We have a president who is stamping his feet and insisting that Santa Claus does so exist. The more he is confronted with the real world, the more he will insist on a government program to have all chimneys cleaned by December 24. Think of the jobs that will create and think how much money Santa will save on drycleaning bills.
Bah! He totally stole that speech. All he had to do was have it translated from German.
Well, that’s a bit harsh. He did replace the word “Juden” with “CEOs”. That is a creative translation.
PB
Like others, I didn’t watch “the speech”. I couldn’t. I’m not an econ expert. I just don’t spend more than I make. My personal “profit” is called savings and investments.
Again, I have noticed the lefties have really backed off as far as entering blogs that are anywhere right of their opinions and beliefs. I don’t venture to hard left wing blogs (Kos, etc.), there is nothing for me there. So, admittedly, I do not know what they are saying at this time.
I imagine one of two things; the lefties are in power and no longer care what those to the right of their beliefs think, or they have indeed had their “Oh my God” moment and are seriously contemplating “What have I done?” Most who voted for Obama are nowhere near a Kos type.
In the past, this whole republican / democrat thing has been like a big game. Those who can, are allowed to do so for a few years and much progress is made, much money flows and builds. The democrats get in power, and all that money is taken and given to the less capable, or those with less drive and energy, lower self esteem, with a few good feely things put in for justifying the confiscation of OPM. It’s a waiting game. Wait long enough, and things will calm down and you will again be free enough to succeed. Wait long enough, and the government will provide your every need. I feel like a tennis ball in play.
However, this cycle has felt different from the word go. Opportunity is as close to equal for all in this nation as I know of, more than any other nation in the world. Equal outcome can not be guaranteed. It doesn’t work. We have reached the point where preventing failure of many is also preventing success of many. The yoke, therefore, is incredibly uneven.
The harder I work, the more I attempt to produce, the more will be confiscated and given to others who will not. Those who can not, I understand. We need to help those, so that their boats too, may rise. Those who will not, well, they are not my problem. But we are still fighting human nature. That hasn’t been going well these past few thousand years. It reminds me of the wave at baseball games.
Does anyone else get the impression POTUS is a grind? That is he will give up on nothing that he considers core (all other promises are just tactical).
We have a financial crisis and he can’t stop talking about everything else. In this case the Titanic will not even attempt to change course.
I’m happy to say I opted out of listening to this speech.
I had far better things to do with that hour or so of my life than regret wasting it later.
My view is, if he says something I agree with – the recent and short history of his administration indicates that he’s lying.
If he says something I disagree with – then by god he’s gonna ram it through regardless of the consequences.
I’m trying to pay more attention to what he actually does than to what he says….kind of like I do if I have to deal with a used car salesman as they also tend to talk smooth and tell you want you want to hear.
There was lots not to like about Obama’s speech, including the glaring lack of specifics about how he was going to pay for all his programs. He was extremely specific about only one thing: his plan to “cut the deficit in half” at the end of three years.
I loved the graphic that canny Arizona senator John Kyl shared with the Fox News reporter after the speech, showing the “inherited” deficit compared to the huge balloon of a deficit Obama’s programs will create. The halved deficit Obama’s planning for in three years will be twice the size of the deficit he inherited. Not so impressive when you see it in black & white.
I thought Bobby Jindal did a nice job. (Although he sounded a bit like Kenneth from 30 Rock until he hit his stride.) He certainly showed himself to be a man of the people with the common touch Obama lacks. (The president’s lip-smacking busses with the ladies in the Senate chamber made him look like he was kissing a lemon. Yuck.)
I hope people don’t put too much pressure on Jindal to move forward in the party too soon – the guy’s only 37 year old and I think he’s got lots of good work still to do in Louisiana before he steps onto the national stage. I hated what the press and the public did to Sarah Palin. Jindal seems like a smart fellow, I hope he holds firm.
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Maybe Rove and Bush will be thinking how they might have paved the way for this “Obama the Great” lawyer with only words in his quiver by not addressing the American citizenry directly…in speeches to us and for us, arguing how they wanted to do things and how the dems were hurting our economy, etc.
However, I doubt these two guys see it this way. As every farmer knows: You reap what you sow!
Check the futures market for the Obama corn prices near you!
I have to say it–Rahm Emmanuel’s a good-looking guy.
So was Kenneth Bianchi.
I’d also love to hear what he intends to do….
Push for more money… specifically 410 billion more — as I said they would do a few more times.
House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year
They are devaluing the cash in everyone’s accounts rather than get the value through taxes. They are raiding the piggy bank since they know what they will do so they know where the value will sit later.
When a older sociopath rapes a young person, the young person may not realize that its rape at first, but eventually a time comes when they realize that what’s happening to them is not love, but instead something very different. We have not realized the situation yet, when we do, that’s when the coupe crisis will start (since we have been primed for 40 years that going out and rioting is the way to get satisfaction from the state).
bill certainly didn’t lack for pork or special interest grants that have nothing to do with the goal of stimulating the economy
Well, the way they see it that’s a matter of opinion… that they have it down to you say its pork because you are against the democrats succeeding (which makes you an enemy of the state to them), they say its stimulus because it doesn’t matter where you rain down money, it’s magic like Adobo! (The left groups are also ideological Adobo — just ad Marxism and everything will be great! Just add a woman to the group and everything will be great! Multiculturalism is more like the colonels 7 magic spices that make everything so great).
They believe in the broken window fallacy.
Which, as I have said endless times before, and doesn’t click, THEY ARE CARGO CULT.
They don’t understand or believe in PRINCIPALS, so they do things that appear in form to match. This is why they believe in equal outcome, not equal opportunity.
We understand financial principals which put us in opposition to people who are presenting the form of a solution without the substance.
A stimulus package is a form… its cargo cult if it has no substance to it
Placing money can stimulate an economy… its cargo cult form is to give it away to your friends which are as good as anyone to get money into the economy by spending.
Money has value based on confidence and other things… to cargo cult, money has no real value, its just an empty form, so we can print as much as we want, and that empty form will not bend if we prevent people from thinking its bent (which is inducing a cargo cult view).
Its POTEMKIN village’s writ large…
Since they are not working on principals based in real world empiricism, they are working on false principals presented to them by ideology as a means to power. (Allowing them to think well of themselves just makes it easier to get more to join the evil parade).
Its not that they don’t understand them, they don’t believe that they even exist. They do not understand why someone like me will do something, and it will work, while they will do something that appears the same in form, and it doesn’t work. (They are copiers and cheaters, so they only have form. if they had substance they would not benefit from copying and cheating).
He also thinks that it’s the opinions of the masses that drive business…
Again, cargo cult… (Either in their mentality, or on purpose for others mentality so they can’t tell the difference. There is no way to tell).
In other words they look at a system, and they make up how they think it works. so he doesn’t appeal to business interests, because he knows he can make people think things that aren’t true. To him, if he can make us think that the economy is ok, then it will be ok, since the reality is only an opinion based on a perception.
He doesn’t see reality as real, which means unlike the people who have led before him, he doesn’t or cant be effective because he is acting as if he lives in a different reality.
Old western man molded nature by application of principals, but the dialogue has been application of will… so these people believe that will alone is enough. So rather than change the fundementals of their approach, they take their hammer and start banging on screws. Then they don’t understand why the economy is not picking up… they keep telling everyone that they are holding three fingers up, and this shold be enough. After all we are so stupid in the aggregate, or rather to a cargo cult, we appear to be stupid.
I can show you examples of this…rock and rollers putting underwear on outside their clothes as a lark to see how stupid people are… they adopt this as fashion, another drop in our culture occurs. But are we stupid, or do we appear stupid when someone betrays our trust and doesn’t realize that’s why?
Look at how lee attacks me as not being smart because I don’t spell check, or punctuate correctly… he has a cargo cult mentality of what is smart. And if smart don’t match the IMAGE of smart, then they must be stupid and arrogant not smart (and so he must now pound in the nail which is not really tall but falsely standing on tippy toes).
He has no real method of determination, and doesn’t realize it. its CARGO CULT. Even when I pointed out an analogy to show how this is an erroneous line of thinking, he couldn’t grasp that his cargo cult determinism was wrong, so he instead twisted it into me trying to bizarrely associate myself with someone rather than see that the famous someone is a common knowledge point that facilitates the transfer if information easier. (it doesn’t if he gets trapped in the metaphore rather than understanding it. reminds me of a dilbert cartoon where dilbert says something with his thought bubble saying “don’t get trapped in the metaphore, don’t get trapped in the metaphore”, with the end panel showing the boss distracted and trapped in the metaphore and confused blaming dilbert)
Obama presents form with not substance. Potemkinism wrapped in populism. Alexander (sasha) Pushkin is his idol (given his daughers names and his love of populism).
Soon though, this will manifest in a explosion of symbolism to clothe ourselves. the cargo cultist sees symbols and portents in everything. so everyone must control what they say, do, and think because everything is a symbol, and the power view is the only view. so every drawing of a monkey is about black racism, even if it isnt. Every action is a statement. Every inaction is a subversion of the wishes of the state and its ability to facilitate the mandate it pretends we gave it.
Its when things don’t work and they need scapegoats and enemies to off load their hollow forms incompetence. its down hill as appointments are already causing the decline.
Neo, as a libertarian, I’d say that the government does have a big role to play in the recovery. Unfortunately, the only tool available to the government is a set of brakes. Obama looks at his one tool and hits on them hard, slamming on the breaks by adding a huge amount of burden on the economy through increased government expenditure. The correct response is to let off the brakes when you want to go faster; anyone who drives a car knows that. But Obama thinks that the government is an accelerator, so he keeps pumping it with his foot and doesn’t understand why every pump results in the stock market tanking.
The other big problem here was the Republican response – they have been handed golden opportunities to drive the stake into the hearts of the Dems and instead offer pretty much the same thing.
Really, the speech and the official Republican response was full of nothing other than platitudes along with some carping to appeal to the base. The ideas and actions that people (and make no mistake – the stock market is still heavily influenced by normal people trading) care about were pretty much left by the wayside. Obama promised massive spending and Republicans pretty much harped on the social aspects of it and after their spending spree that isn’t reassuring.
I think this huge downward slide has more to do with the dawning realization that there is no where to turn too to fix things – you just have a choice of which poison to take. Partisans were both happy with their side, both angry at the other, and the rest of the people angry at both. I liked and agreed with the Republican rhetoric too, it just was a waste of time and contributed to the slide as much as Obama did.
NNC
Spot the cadence of BO’s sentences. Down at the end, signifying a pat conclusion arrived at.
He may have a high IQ but that smugness will bite him in the ass.
Remember “Caroline, no?” ‘They say I got brains, but they ain’t doin me much good…’
When watching these grandiose battle plans announsed on TV, I could not help but remember Leo Tolstoy’s description of Borodino battle plans in “War and Peace”: “Ernste column marchreit…” – and how it later was played out on the terrain, not on the map.