I didn’t watch Obma’s speech last night. Fortunately, I was busy doing other—and more pleasant—things.
But from the reports I see, I don’t think anyone was pleased with it, left or right, with the exception of a few of the president’s most partisan shills. Joe Biden used it as an opportunity to get some shuteye. Clive Crook thinks Obama’s speech was a pitiful waste of breath.
In his speech, Obama abandoned any temporary pretense of bipartisan rhetoric and indulged in his tried-and-true Bush/Republicans bashing mixed with a liberal helping of class warfare. Perry Bacon at the WaPo certainly noticed the intense partisanship:
In the speech, he used as many words to attack the GOP proposal as to lay out his own…
Even as he savaged the GOP proposal, Obama was less than specific about his own. He did not say exactly how he would reform how corporations are taxed, what he would do to achieve a simpler tax system or which defense programs he would cut. On Social Security, he not only didn’t announce a proposal but would not say whether one was likely to be included in the final legislation.
And Obama, who rarely personally interjected himself into the negotiations on the federal budget over the past two weeks, seems prepared to play a similar role on the deficit: He announced that a group of 16 members of Congress and Vice President Biden would negotiate over the legislation, allowing the president to remain out of the day-to-day politicking on the issue.
This is Obama’s m.o. as we have come to know it, from the time of his campaign for president: blame the Republicans and distort and demonize their stand, then remain vague about what you’re proposing as an alternative. As Fred Barnes puts it, Obama didn’t rise to the occasion; he sank.
That doesn’t mean that at the end of the day he won’t come out ahead in this series of negotiations. I don’t think most people listened to the speech, but many more will pay attention to the final result, or at least their perception of the final result. Obama is counting on Republicans being scattered and weakened by fighting among themselves . And he may indeed be correct on that score.
[NOTE: Obama also indulged in another of his favorite pastimes, dissing those present at the speech without their being able to answer back. Talk about captive audiences! In earlier speeches it was the conservative Supreme Court justices; this time it was Rep. Paul Ryan. As Jim Geraghty points out:
Perhaps one of the reasons Obama loves the setting of the grandiose national address is that there is rarely a rebuttal. Any interruption to dispute the facts — like, say, Rep. Joe Wilson yelling out, “You LIE!” during an address to Congress — comes across as rude to the office of the presidency. The Supreme Court is completely unused to being criticized to their faces; members of Congress are used to the back-and-forth of debates on the floor in which every accusation and assertion can be rebutted and cross-examined.
I’m reminded of Saul Alinsky’s Third Rule: Wherever possible, go outside of the experience of your enemy.
Obama is, among other things, a petty bully and a demagogue who seems to get off on inviting his enemies to a front seat (literally) and then making them squirm.
And here, in case you want it, is a more sober analysis of the Ryan plan.]
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely 
April 14th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
It was an ugly spectacle and typical of Obama’s bullying, in-your-face manner of discourse. A petty speech that went too far even for liberals who still indulge in the pretense of objective ‘media’. We’ll likely see more of it in many settings formerly deemed above such crass displays. I really doubt this democrat slash and burn demagoguery would work in a fair election, but in the age of Franken, Wagner, and Gore, this might just be sufficient.
April 14th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
He talked down to them and us as if we were all 1st graders, with lie upon lie and multiple straw men.
He needs to meet Mubarak’s end. We need that.
I worried aloud last year, here I think, about the census bureau reporting directly to the WH per edict from Baraq and Rahm. Fraud of great scope looms.
We must never forget this man’s utterly malign nature.
April 14th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Neal Boortz has been going on about the Dunning-Kruger Effect the last couple days. It is my view, the entire Obama administration can be tagged with that, since the overwhelming majority of his cabinet and Czars are from academia and not the real world. Of course they feel superior……even though Sgt. Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes knew more.
April 14th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Utterly malign nature (Well, he may like his kids….)
sums it up. In his budget speech he channelled Alan Grayson. I won’t be surprised if he channels Hugo Chavez before the end of 2011. I mean, we don’t need elections do we? :^(
April 14th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Obama’s core principle: “If we can only tax them more and spend a lot more, we can make this work. And you are stupid and un-American if you don’t agree with me!”
April 14th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
At some point we have to face that democrats are economic terrorist engaged in an extortion scheme. We either force equal outcomes for all the non elite ruling class or they will engage in the destruction of any prosperity in America as far as the eye can see. This is fundamentally where we are in 2011.
April 14th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
I agree SteveH, and the democrat’s response will be “The last time we had a balanced budget was when Bill Clinton was President!”; while they are completely over looking and marginalizing the Republican congress at the time.
April 14th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
http://www.conservativerefocus.com/index.php/2011/04/10/the-rise-of-left-wing-capitalism-eclipse
April 14th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
The Repub House needs to grow some balls. Stuck on “we’re on half of one-third of the Gov’t”, they willingly forget they have the power.
I heard briefly on Hannity a House “leader” unnamed in my brief listen, who said-and I am not making this up- that the present fuss is only about 5 months of Federal spending. Only. He said, “only.” If this is no big deal for the Repubs, they should be grouped with the enemy.
This brilliant further said, “We have lots of battles coming up.” Yep. And if you don’t fight to win we will assuredly lose, Meester Congressman.
April 14th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
“”Some older Americans must feel as if they have been slumbering for a span of decades,”"
Artfldgr
I feel homesick. Sorta like being at a wilderness camp run by assholes.
April 14th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
I love Obama, destroyer of the Dimocrat Party!
Joy is here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg3EcoNJ5ys&feature=relmfu
April 14th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
It is all so much fiddling while Rome burns.
April 14th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Would anyone want to run for President with Obama’s record?
https://secure.donationsafe.com/lof
April 14th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
I know he’s the president but, simply put, the man is a dick. He’s petty, bullying and continually exhibits behavior beneath the dignity of the office. Every time you think he can’t go lower, he does. How he fools anyone or retains the respect of anyone, I don’t know.
April 15th, 2011 at 1:36 am
The speech itself was bad enough but it is just appalling that he invited Rep. Paul Ryan to sit in the front row and then engaged in the crudest demagoguery against his budget plan. What a nasty, vindictive little man is Obama.
April 15th, 2011 at 4:42 am
Did you see this WaPo piece?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-riffs-with-donors-where-are-the-cool-phones-and-did-you-hear-about-the-emir/2011/04/14/AFr4qIgD_story.html?nl_headlines
Did he really want to be president to have the coolest iPhone on the planet? Malignant narcissism plus unbelievable superficiality = Obama. I pray that this country and Obama’s media sycophants start to realize that character counts, but I worry about Obama’s reaction when he realizes that the world sees through him and that no amount of pressers will bring back the thrill of the styrofoam column days.
I can’t help but wonder whether Gates, Petraeus, and other competent honorable men at the top are only hanging on to keep some sanity in our government and because to date they are the only ones who can counter his fantasy world. We should be very measured in our criticism of them because I think they are walking a very thin tightrope.
April 15th, 2011 at 6:54 am
I can’t even bear to look at him or listen to him anymore; They were Presidents I disliked but it doesn’t come close to the disdain I have for Obama.
The world is falling apart and he’s concerned about having a new cool phone.
April 15th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Besides his narcissism, I suspect that another reason Il Dufe (to quote Geraghty, above) “loves the setting of the grandiose national address” is that it gives him a chance to do his favorite pose, the Mussolini chin-tilt. It’s sort of an acknowledgement of his philosophical roots: you know, “Nothing outside the State,” etc.
April 15th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Not with a bang…
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From Roger L. Simon’s President Boring …
What is it about Barack Obama that caused his vice president Joe Biden to fall asleep during the president’s speech Tuesday?
…
I submit it is something quite simple — he has nothing to say. He is a boring person, the quintessential “hollow man” in the T.S. Eliot sense.
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There never was a there there. And now, I strongly suspect, there never will be.
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We have elected our own Joseph K., except he has nowhere near Kafka’s brilliance, nor the Czech’s dark humor.
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There is nothing I can add to what Mr. Simon said.
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April 18th, 2011 at 1:29 am
I’d think Obama was another Joseph Stalin. Including that nervous tick and lack of spine.