As usual we must swim across the deep blue pond to get the honest reviews/reporting from the UK’s non-Obama appeasing media. Here is the Telegraph’s Nile Gardiner on Obama’s long and inane speech from yesterday afternoon at Knox College, Illinois…
Today’s speech at Knox College, Illinois, was supposed to be the president’s come-back moment, the first of a series of addresses aimed at retaking the initiative by the White House. Instead it was a train-wreck. In an hour-long address, which seemed to last forever (and par for course started 15 minutes late), the president spoke in deeply partisan terms, often with bitterness and anger, lambasting his political opponents, dismissing criticism of his policies, and launching into his favourite theme of class warfare, attacking the wealthy and what he calls the “winner takes all economy.” In a display of extraordinary arrogance (even by his standards), he condemned what he called “an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals,” a direct reference to the Congressional investigations into the IRS and Benghazi scandals, which most Americans don’t see as phony. He also defended his increasingly unpopular Obamacare proposals, attacking what he calls “a politically-motivated misinformation campaign,” while failing to acknowledge that moderate Democrats are “steadily turning against Obamacare” as The Washington Post reported today.
This was a highly defensive speech, with President Obama in full campaign mode. There were no fresh ideas, just a tired rehash of earlier campaign rhetoric. It was also another love letter to big government, with a clarion call for yet more federal spending on environmental measures, infrastructure, manufacturing, and a laundry list of liberal pet causes. There was not a word about reducing the burden of government regulation, and getting bureaucracy off the backs of entrepreneurs. His speech promised more government spending at a time when America’s national debt is approaching a staggering $17 trillion. He rejected tax cuts, and bashed the rich, at times sounding more like Francois Hollande than the leader of the free world.
Once again, Barack Obama demonstrated why he has built an unenviable reputation as a perpetual campaigner in chief, with an overwhelmingly partisan agenda. Obama is no Ronald Reagan, who always sought to bring the country together based on the common ideals of the Founding Fathers. President Obama’s message will do nothing to reassure a sceptical American public. With unemployment still above 10 percent in 27 major US metropolitan areas, and nearly one in six Americans living on food stamps, the economic record of this administration leaves much to be desired. Today in Illinois, President Obama spoke the language of decline, promising more of the same left-wing policies that have weakened US competitiveness, eroded economic freedom, and have saddled the world’s superpower with historic levels of debt. Americans deserve better than the failed statism that has bankrupted cities like Detroit, and threatens to do the same to the rest of the country.
While watching Sean Hannity’s FOX News Channel TV show last night, Sean was running a recording of this Obama speech silently in the botton right corner of the screen, showing how long the man had droned on and on, and did not finish by the time Hannity’s show had ended. Here is a link to the video and the transcript of Obama’s Knox College, Illinois speech from yesterday.
HT on this post’s title from Mark Levin @ Facebook
Of interest:
“Two Americans Added to Food Stamp Rolls for Every Job Administration Says It Created”
“Top 10 Signs Scandals Aren’t ‘Phony'”
“President Alinsky Threatens Americans with Rising ‘Social Tensions’”
“Poll: Race relations have plummeted since Obama took office”
It could be worse. You might have been one of those sitting behind him the whole time being forced to feign interest and not allowing themselves to fall asleep. I wonder how they get chosen, er.. forced, to sit there.
So what else can you expect from BO? He’s totally invested in a fantasy of magical oratorical superpowers (which, to be fair, has been massively stoked by others), and let’s face it, this is all he can do–it’s all he knows and all he’s got to offer (other than, in effect, voting “present”). Yes, many politicians of all stripes get WAY further than they deserve (it’s called dysfunctional voters), but Obama is the epitome of affirmative action, the most extreme example of that notion at its worst. He would NEVER have gotten even the Dem nomination in 2008 if he’d been white, which is in direct contradiction of MLK’s injunction against putting race over character. That was NOT Obama’s fault, even if he took it and ran with it.
It is not his fault that the American electorate, or at least half of it, is effectively irrational and dangerously irresponsible, not to say out of its mind. I’m not talking about black voters, who are, in a way, relatively more “rational” than the rest regarding Obama, or at least easier to understand (but notice I didn’t say justify). As appallingly unfit as Obama is for his job, it was GIVEN to him, TWICE. I have no respect for him, but I cannot blame him for doing so atrociously poorly in office. The man never had it in him to do better, and in spite of everything, that should have been clear enough to keep him from the presidency in the first place. I agree that a speech like this is deeply deplorable, to say the least, but it’s perfectly in character and perfectly predictable. Don’t look at how badly he dances, but rather at who asked him to the dance. The fact his approval rating is STILL 45% is far more disturbing than this lousy speech.