Obama On The Radio: Wow, That Stunk!

The text of the speech and reactions via Memeorandum. I caught it in the car on the way to a lunch with Mark Tapscott of The Examiner. Mark reported mixed feedback from the newsroom. I was amazed after only listening to it as I did. It was, in a word, terrible, at best.

Obama sounded flat, like an individual talking about something he'd rather not discuss. He spoke over applause lines, and seemed to wait on others that never evolved. None of the impressive qualities of his speaking I've noted when viewing him came through at all. He was a total dud. And his speech didn't flow well, or seem to have any real rationale. Was it a history lesson, a state of the disunion address? An indictment of angry white and or black America, both, or none at all?

Frankly, when it was all over, I had no idea what Obama was trying to say at all except, perhaps, Vote For Me! I'm the newest, best-est black kid on the block. I'll try and watch the video later to see if it plays differently. But as far as the radio broadcast went, sorry, Obamaniacs ... the speech just flat out sucked.

Actually, I think I'd rather have been listening to Jeremiah Wright after that experience, if for no other reason than the entertainment value, and perhaps the honesty, however misguided, it represents. As for Obama's effort, is making a speech that attempts so hard to be all things to all people really capable of saying anything of significance at all in the end?

Comments

[seekeronos]

It nearly put me to sleep, listening to him drone on.

[Miklo]

Something to consider...

Spitzer's news was going to hurt Hillary. So the Clintons pulled out this Rev. Wright story just to deflect attention away from themselves and mudsling Obama just before the Penn Primary!

The trouble is... this Obama "thang" has legs. And the Clintons saved the best for last... Because that's there M.O.

Frankly, the Clintons scare me more than Obama, Farrakhan, and Jeremiah Wright COMBINED!

[jharp]

I smell fear.

Like him or not he is one of the most remarkable speakers of recent.

Obama speaking along side George Bush makes Bush look like a big steaming pile of dog doo doo.

[chris]

I'm sure that Obama's camp is devastated to hear that his speech didn't resonate with the flag-wavers. Apparently, the stuttering, endless awkward pauses, incomplete sentences and mispronunciations of your fearless 'leader' are more what you guys are looking for.

[Roy Mustang]

Obama: Rev. Wright is like my racist grandmother. I treat all racists with the love that only I can bring as the uniter.

(Was his grandmom like a member of the Schutzstaffel or something? I thought she was just a kind old lady that raised him after his mom and dad abandoned him?)

[Lala]

Hitler was a great speaker.

[jharp]

"Hitler was a great speaker." And therefore Obama is just like Hitler?

You guys have lost your minds.

Just take it easy and settle down a little. Any of the three candidates will be a vast improvement. Get McCain off the 100 year mission in Iraq and starting a war with Iran and you've got decent shot at getting a Republican liberal elected.

Otherwise get used to President Obama.

[joeb]

Where is Preacher Wright? Oh he took his family and went to Africa. It appears that Preacher Wright is really Preacher Wrong. Preacher Wright has left the country.

[Lala]

"Like him or not he (Obama) is one of the most remarkable speakers of recent.

Obama speaking along side George Bush makes Bush look like a big steaming pile of dog doo doo."

Hitler was also a great speaker, like him or not, I guess he'd also make George Bush etc. etc.

[Terry Gain]

"Hitler was a great speaker." And therefore Obama is just like Hitler?
You guys have lost your minds.

Just take it easy and settle down a little. Any of the three candidates will be a vast improvement. Get McCain off the 100 year mission in Iraq and starting a war with Iran and you've got decent shot at getting a Republican liberal elected.

Otherwise get used to President Obama.

-------

harpy

In your haste to disagree, you missed the point entirely. Hitler was a great speaker. It takes more than being a great speakeer to make one a great man. (BTW and in my humble opinion Obama isn't a great speaker. I prefer orator's who sweat when they lie. Even Nixon had the decency to do that).

Here's the speech he should have given.

"Dr. Wright's divisive anti-American and racist rants turned my stomach but Michelle insisted we keep going to his services".

[IslamoLlama]

"--I'm sure that Obama's camp is devastated to hear that his speech didn't resonate with the flag-wavers.--"

Oh yeah, they're shattered to be sure.
This is truly the height of detachment. I'm not going to run off and gush over the speech. I thought it was good, but who am I to judge? However, to claim that it "sucked" after eight years of burrowing neck deep into the President's rhetorical rectum... Talk about a lack of refinement. It's like watching people eat turnips for nearly a decade only to have them blanch at a well-cooked steak.

Did Mittens Romney inspire you with his Mormonism Moment? Did McCain woo you with his nomination speech? Did Bush's Mission Accomplished pronouncement give you a woody? How about his third "we're not going into a recession" fireside chat of the month?

Who's better? Name a living politician who has given a more intelligent and empathetic speech in the last fifteen years. Hell, name a Ronald Reagen speech you thought one-up'd the good Senator?

You've got nothing but whining critics. A great sound and fury, signifying nothing except your distaste for everyone in opposition party.

"-- Hitler was a great speaker. --"

Oh thank god. Please tell me this signifies the end of "Obama is the next Hitler" diatribes. If nothing else, I'm glad I have that to look towards.

[Lala]

I never listen to politicians' speeches since they don't write them themselves. If I want to know what they said then I read it in the newspapers. I do watch them when they are answering questions though, when they are not scripted. Anyone who measures a person by the speech they make, or how well they deliver it, is an ass.

[BobInStamford]

I suggest that you listen to you stammering leader when his babbling isn't scripted. He makes the guy from Slingblade sound good.

Happy Iraq Victory Day, patriots!! 5 years of success and counting!!!

[Lala]

My, my, making fun of the disabled.

[joeb]

I dont think it was a very good speech at all. I mean it sounded good but so what? It left me wondering why he belonged to that church for 20 years?

[jharp]

Lala/joeb,

Why don't you two worry about your candidate. The liberal John McCain.

I do not think Obama is trying to appeal to the 20%ers. Nor does he have to. They are irrelevant.

You'd better get McCain to appeal to the voters who are going to decide the election. That'd be the 50% of republicans and 75% of independents who want the occupation of Iraq to end and do not want to invade Iran.

[jharp]

Oh, and by the way, Lala.

"I never listen to politicians' speeches since they don't write them themselves."

You have become so used to our current bozo in chief that you no longer expect much I guess.

This wasn't a speech by committee... Obama wrote the speech himself, working on it for two days and nights.... and showed it to only a few of his top advisers.

[Lala]

Jbarp - You have no idea who my candidate is. I have never listened to political speeches, no matter who is making it.

[Chris]

Harpy,
I hope you're getting paid to spew your invective because you sure won't win any converts here.

"That'd be the 50% of republicans and 75% of independents who want the occupation of Iraq to end and do not want to invade Iran."

You are pathetic. Iraq was liberated, no matter the spin you like to put on it. A former lib hero signed the Iraq Liberation Act in October 1998. It passed the Congress with overwhelming support. From Wiki:

"The Act was passed 360-38 in the U.S. House of Representatives[2] and by unanimous consent in the Senate.[3] US President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law on October 31, 1998. The law's stated purpose was: "to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq."

You can carry on with your nutjobbery all you want. And nobody wants to invade Iran. There are adults who have decided that confronting Iran might be the best of many bad choices if it comes down to it. Rather than berating and hectoring those of us who would choose confrontation over appeasement, why not go back to MySpace and commiserate with your fellow travelers over the downfall of your Marxist Messiah.

[jharp]

"Jbarp - You have no idea who my candidate is. I have never listened to political speeches, no matter who is making it."

We agree I don't. And I didn't profess to.

You said "I never listen to politicians' speeches since they don't write them themselves."

And I pointed out that Senator Obama authored the speech he gave today.

That's all.

[Lala]

Jbarp, you told me my candidate was the liberal John McCain

[IslamoLlama]

"-- Jbarp - You have no idea who my candidate is. I have never listened to political speeches, no matter who is making it. --"

*snicker* Lala, do you even know who your candidate is? You don't listen to speeches, you're clearly not up on current events, and you don't seem to have a strong grasp of any candidate's platforms.

Better still, you never listen to political speeches and yet claim to know how the content of the speech fails to reflect on a politician's actions. Kinda like claiming that you've never read a book because you know all the endings. Horray for logical fallacies!

[Fred Beloit]

IslamMoe writes: "Name a living politician who has given a more intelligent and empathetic speech in the last fifteen years."

I'll take that challenge, Moe, you pityful sack of mush brain. I nominate Rev Wright, an electrifyingly demogogic political speaker disguised as a preacher. Well, you decide how intelligent, but he certainly is emphatic. Would I vote for him for President? No thanks. Not for him, not for one of his most faithful disciples. I'd rather eat a bar of soap. How about you, Moe?

[seekeronos]

"--- Hell, name a Ronald Reagen speech you thought one-up'd the good Senator? ---"

Well this one is rather memorable:

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

And I remember Evil Empire Speech™ as well.

Good stuff.

As for Herr Obama... he's good, but I don't think he is *Hitler* good (i.e. he doesn't quite have the Horst Wessel/Albert Speer manner of making you feel like a tiny gear in the grand magnificence of the Third Reich).

His associations with, and slither-tongued defense of his black-supremacist fulminating preacher will not endear him to the slim white majority of independents who aren't beguiled by or ensnared in the trap of White Guilt or political correctness when the general election rolls around.

[tally]

i thought the speech was really odd. i don't know, but it make me uncomfortable. so basically, all last week he was lying. and he adores wright but it's okay because granny was a racist. he dropped a bit of the black preacher tone in his voice, i did notice that. the whole thing was weird and surreal. don't know what i was expecting.

[John]

The point of his speech was to claim that the 'real enemy' whom all the little groups of haters (black and white) ought to be directing their wrath is evil white rich men - capitalists.

That is, his goal for uniting haters is the same old, same old socialist utopian dream of firing enough of the angry underclass into seizing government control of the means of production.

Unlike Jeremiah Wright and Marx, his "hope" is that the "revolution's" end can be achieved via the ballot box, not battlefield. And in that he's not too far off. Plenty of republics have fallen into totalitarian dictatorships by one party via free elections. Venezuela is but the most recent example.

The government - with him in charge of course - will then give to all these disparate groups of haters - the black supremacists, the white liberals, feminists, gays, unions, blue collar Joes....whatever it is they claim is owed to them simply for being there. And what ever it is, it'll never be enough and so their anger will forever be stoked against those 'unpatriotic' companies and of course, the evil rich white men that run them who refuse to be taxed into oblivion.

Reading his autobiography, it's apparant that for Obama, the goal of a socialist utopia is what "progress" consists of. Everything else is a means to that end; social organizing, church membership, party membership, the current campaign. It's not about freedom, live and let live, harmony and peace. It's about massive government control of the economy via takeovers of the health care industry, the education industry, and energy ("the enviroment").

One sees his joining the church was about reaching this greater empowerment.... not about salvation, but about using the church as a means to social change where the government rules supreme and there is no competition to its power.

He sees racism then not as a discrete problem, but as an occasion to fire people into action - and not for harmony of the races but for bigger government. Unite black conspiracy nuts and white conspiracy nuts in mutual hatred of capitalists. Unity not in love or patriotism but in hatred for the acceptible scapegoats - and use this new found unity of purpose in seizing federal power to punish these rich folk and share the spoils, consequences be damned.

I for one am not against him for his race or background, but for these failed socialist ideas. It's not black, brown, or white that I'm worried about, it's the red flag of socialism.

[John]

As for Iraq.... we've had troops in Germany for 60 years. Troops in Korea for 55 years... and both deployments have no end in sight! It is thus perfectly plausible that we'll have a troop presence in Iraq for at least as long.

Typically leftists have such short term memories and a dogged inability to grasp big concepts. Clinton claimed we'd be out of Bosnia "by Christmas" - yet we're STILL THERE. He also bombed the hell out of Serbia without UN approval "for humanitarian reasons" - with nary a peep from the "peace" community. Indeed, Serbia was not then, nor is now, nor is capable of being a threat to the US. But we bombed them anyway. And the Left was cool with that.

Iraq meanwhile in the post-9/11 world sat smack dab in the middle of the Arab Middle East, had multiple ties to international terror groups, including Al Qaeda. And they were running the biggest scam in UN history via their "food for oil" boondoggle. Iraq was not "in a box" then and could never have been given geography. So, following 9/11, the US faced a choice vis a vis the Muslim world exploding with terrorism: we could remain on tenuous bases along the Persian gulf and Afghanistan, or we could establish a massive presence in the heart of the Arab world in Iraq.

The problem if you recall was put to us as "the poverty and political repression of the middle east is the spawning ground, the swamp of terrorism" and the sophisticates that preached diplomacy with Saddam claimed that the solution to terrorism was enlightenment via improved economic and political freedoms. So, how to achieve this goal?

The doves had no concrete ideas other than to let Saddam go from the embargo to um, well, ah, continue building weapons and palaces. Brilliant idea.

Our idea was to take out Saddam and put a democratic constitutional republic in his place - and fight the Arab terror networks right in their own back yard. "Draining the swamp" both of the motives for terrorism (poverty, repression) as well as attracting and killing off all the Al Qaeda trained terrorists who otherwise would be re-directed to hurt us elsewhere.

The plan has worked brilliantly with liberals completely in the dark about it while they nit pick about the peripheries and details.

Iraq now has a free political system and their economy is booming. We're in the process of draining the swamp. And we have a ring of bases from Kuwait, B'harain, Qutar, and UEA and none of their local populations seem to care much. We have fundamentally changed the geo-strategic situation in the Middle East PRECLUDING the rise of a Sunni Arab caliphate that was Al Qaeda's end game, as well as creating the conditions in which modern, multi-party democracies can flourish.

Sunni and Shiite Arabs and Kurds are now joining us in common cause against Al Qaeda and their ilk. Nationalism is on the rise (a good thing) also precluding some pan-Islamic super-state from forming either for some Shiite Mullah or some Sunni Immam.

But liberals hate Bush, think he's stoopid, so ignore the big picture in favor of nit-picking snide remarks. In their rush to pre-judge Bush a 'miserable failure' they take their eyes off the big picture and so doom themselves to be living in a fantasy world of their own agit-prop.

None of their foreign policy suggestions have a prayer of success: endless diplomacy without the threat of gun boats, pre-emptive surrender with deadlines and "redeployments", de-funding "to get people working".... none of this would work domestically - indeed their domestic policies never involve de-funding ANYTHING to "get people working" or removing police from inner cities "to provide a political solution". Yet they believe this would work abroad???

If de-funding, threatening to pull out of a region, and endless diplomacy with vague calls for someone else to take care of the costs/boots on the ground is so brilliant why not attempt this at home in Baltimore, DC, New Orleans, Detroit, and Chicago?

Ah, because of course, people here are different than people there? Human nature is different? Motivation changes by the culture? Don't they realise how stupid they increasingly look like?

Domestically Democrats' solution to all the endemic problems of modern times involves MORE spending AND MORE of the same policies they've pursued for 60 years. And yet....THE CITIES THEY RUN here in the US are basketcases. They can't get a handle on crime, improve their schools, improve their health care, physical grid, roads, bridges...anything without massive Federal intervention.

Yet they have the gall to claim to be on the cutting edge for economic or domestic utopian goals?

Their foreign policy ideas are based on fantasies - and their domestic policy legacies are failures. The only thing they have going for them is a fantastic PR machine - like the communist fellow travellers. Great propaganda, terrible actual results. So, no, I am not amazed by Obama or Hillary or the DNC. They can only win if the real majority stays home.