Marc Ambinder gets his groove on:
The Best Speech Obama’s Given Since…Maybe Ever
Today, at Ft. Hood. I guarantee: they’ll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won’t do it justice. Yes, I’m having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge.
Anyone need a cigarette? As Violet Socks said:
See, for me, the man+moment+words=thrill equation kind of falls apart once you know that “the man” in question is about as sincere as a can of aerosol cheese. But that’s just me. The Blogger Boys are obviously on a different wavelength. They don’t want a president; they want a spiritual guru.
If you want a moving eulogy, try this one:
Old Ronnie gave that little speech the same day as the Challenger tragedy – and he didn’t give a “shout-out” to anyone first. Reagan’s eyes didn’t bounce from left to right like he was watching a tennis match – he looked directly into the camera and gave the impression he was looking right at you. Reagan was a great speechifyer.
But great speeches don’t make a great leader. What happened at Fort Hood was a horrible tragedy – it’s not an “opportunity” for Obama to impress his fans. It’s about the victims, not a politician.
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Filed under: Barack Obama, General | Tagged: Barack Obama, Fort Hood shooting |
The Confluence 
Don’t you miss the days when you had to be an adult to be president?
there’s a few other eyes opening too
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6006/t/5410/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=727
What about women?
That’s what I said yesterday.
well, lesbians are women too…..
NOW & NARAL should be stomping the DNC asses right now too. Starting with Donna Brazille’s (then Oprah’s).
Shh! The boycott will be off if the blogger boys realize category gay also includes subhumans.
sorry – I promise I won’t tell. Actually, if I convince them that women are just really convincing drag queens, maybe they’ll include women in the equation? Mixner will fall for anything…
Hey, I like you, you know the folks that sold us down the river, while saying they were saving us. I like your blog.
that criticism won’t resonate with them yet – the kool-aid fog is wearing off and they can see where they are ‘now’, but they won’t be capable of 20/20 hindsight for another few months.
Oh sure. You had to go and do it.
I refuse to read it. I don’t know what these people are smoking, but Obama has about as much sense of what soldiers go through as Paris Hilton.
Outrageous title, but very, very funny. Why does the media have to slobber over everything Obama says or does? It’s a mystery.
Simple answer:
Their corporate masters told them to slobber, fawn, and fill their trouser legs with DNA.
The part where he read their names first and then one-by-one we saw their pictures and he said a few lines about each of their stories was the only part of the speech that was powerful, and that was due to the content. The rest of his speech didn’t hold my attention. I did like when he was completely silent at the end and placed a commander-in-chief’s coin next to each victim’s photo. I agree that this is not about Obama, it is about the victims, and I was turned off by the tone of some of the news coverage just beforehand during the wait for the President and the First Lady to arrive…I didn’t think it was appropriate to fill the time talking up Obama’s upcoming speech, as if it wasn’t the President’s job to give it.
They really have a crush on this guy–it’s bizarre. They are like a bunch of infatuated tweens.
I was 4 years old when I heard Reagan give that eulogy. I still remember hearing it like it was yeasterday. Especially that closing line. I am not a fan of Reagan, but his words were memorable.
I remember that one as well, and also the “tear down this wall” speech. I’m no fan of Ronnie, but he did those two well. I was proud of my flawed country and my doddering president on those occasions. I believe in giving credit where credit is due. He done good on those.
Those last two lines were from a 1941 poem, written by a 19-year-old American in the Royal Canadian Air Force, several months before he died in a mid-air collision during battle. Here’s the poem in its entirety:
High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds…and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of…wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space…
…put out my hand, and touched the face of God
That is really beautiful, thank you.
Where did Obama get his moving quotes?
(Just words?)
Now those are inspired words.
Very beautiful poem-I suppose Reagan took all the credit?
I wasn’t impressed or moved by anything he ever did or said. Never. Sorry…that’s just me.
Reagan really impressed me, but I was young and dumb and full of shit.
Then I started seeing the disconnect between the rhetoric and reality.
I was enamored with him and he was the first vote I cast in my young voting life (first term). Witnessing his inaction as the AIDS epidemic ravaged my community in his second term really made me regret that first vote I ever cast. Every vote since then has been the result of weighing all the issues and all the facts – my vote for Hillary has been my proudest to date.
“And the Band Played On” really lays that out.
Disconnect between rhetoric and reality…hmmm…sounds familiar.
SoD, I totally agree.
Reagan was an actor. Of course he could deliver a moving speech. Got choked up and cried well on cue, too.
That’s terrific, he should resign and go teach rhetoric classes then. Maybe we finally found something he can actually do.
Via Three Wickets on the Morning News thread, did you guys see there’s a piece on Politico with Plouffe admitting they leaked the Edwards “Breck Girl” haircut smear to the press? Is it just me, or–damn?
He just reads the speeches – Jon “Titty-groper” Favreau does the hard part of writing them.
That’s why he’d be good at it. He can ask Jon to annotate his own speeches and then just read off the notes. As long as he doesn’t have to teach anyone else’s speeches, he’s golden.
As well as pushing the every Clinton smear they could cook up and fuel, all the while he was out proselytizing about the nasty “old politics” and their noble “new politics.” Hypocrites.
I know how dirty they are (and I’m sure they leaked Edwards’ daughter to the press too), but this is the first time they’ve admitted it. Is it possible that someone will pick it up and point out a smear like that hurts the entire party, that’s way beyond the line for a primary, declaring war on your own party for your own narcissistic benefit is kinda, you know, wrong?
At this point, I think it’s unlikely that people will run with it. Considering how much they still fawn over Obama.
Wow, Reagan really knew how to deliver pathos and sincerity. By golly, I think he actually meant it. That was – a Peggy noonan special.
Too bad he was such a terrible president otherwise.
That’s what you call a “Nooner”
Yeah, but they had to play the sound of a clapper board in his ear piece before every speech to get Ronnie started.
But But But… He used a teleprompter!
” A can of aerosol cheese. ”
Perfect description of Obama. LOL
Well, I have a hard time listening to Reagan. I couldn’t watch. I never got a feeling of sincerity from him except when he was tell his “welfare queen” stories.
He was actually a very mean-spirited man, IMHO.
I think I that before it was kewl
ME too!! My post to that effect is in the spam monster’s cave.
The Reagan administration was the first time that I realized I was physically ill by someone’s voice. Even Bush sr. didn’t evoke the same response–I remember that relief in 1989… W came close, but hearing Obama is the worst for me. It’s the nasty bastard hiding behind a “sincere” face. Made worse by the stinging betrayal of what was once my party.
I hated Reagan. Obama worse.
Hi everyone!
I’ve been a naughty, absent Conflucian, but still love it here!
Joanie!!!!! 🙂
Hey Joanie. How you doing?
Joaniebone!!!
SOD!! (kisses!) (kisses!). Hi Seriously!
I have been fine–very busy, overwhelmed, actually. And maybe a tinge sad. It gets dark so early here!
This is a good place to feel cozy when it really isn’t out there.
MYIQ!!! I used the word “naughty” for you!
😳
Joanie!!!
Hi Joaniebone!
I already hated him back in the ’60s, but it was cool to hate him then.
Thankfully I don’t have a TV — so I don’t have to hear HIM.
The blogger boyzzzz are stupid — so I could care less if da HIM turns them on.
Raygun — I hated him when he was Gov and never liked nor believed him when he was prez. I worn out the mute on the tv remotes — refused to let my husband have the remote because he couldn’t mute the bastard fast enough.
Now I’ve given up on tv — I didn’t want to hear bush’s ugly voice and I refuse to listen to HIM da one and only plagiarist.
Thank you so much for this thread — because as usual 0zero made this all about HIM. The attention is on HIM — not how he is fucking the military up because he is NOT a leader. I blame the deaths on HIM. So this is like the wolf giving the eulogy for the dead sheep.
Didn’t watch. Probably should have. Didn’t want to risk seeing the insincerity hurt the tribute. The adoring talking heads by themselves would have been too much to bear.
I didn’t watch either. Soldiers die everyday. The fact that these were killed by a mentally unsound compatriot doesn’t make them more or less than the others who put on a uniform just more “newsworthy”(particularly so close to Veterans Day. Are they going to be holding a televised mass/memorial everyday for the people dying in Iraq or Afghanistan? I feel for the families but I am totally not into using a media three ring circus to commemorate lives.
Meanwhile, hold on to your Constitutional rights:
Justice Dept. Asked For News Site’s Visitor Lists
In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.
The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.
The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded “all IP traffic to and from http://www.indymedia.us” on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to “include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information,” including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers’ Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.
Bankston has written a longer description of the exchange of letters with the Justice Department, which he hopes will raise awareness of how others should respond to similar legal demands for Web logs, customer records, and compulsory silence. “Our fear is that this kind of bogus gag order is much more common than one would hope, considering they’re legally baseless,” Bankston says. “We’re telling this story in hopes that more providers will press back and go public when the government demands their silence.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/09/taking_liberties/entry5595506.shtml?tag=mncol;txt
Morrison is going under the bus. A thing like that requires explicit authorization from the AG but fine upstanding Eric knows nothing about it. Whole lotta rogue lawyers at Justice.
Yea, it also reminds me of the Reagan White House–nobody knew anything about what was going on…”I can’t recall.”
i couldn’t believe that …I posted it on an earlier thread, thought Cheney’d left the white house but evidently we’ve got Cheney clones there now
Like I said — it’s just Cheney’s cousin in the WH.
Not to worry.
This administration is all about control. Just today I was commenting on that and saying watch for communications to be the next target. This is eerie.
Totally OT, but I wondered if there was any chance of you plugging the Confluence lending team over at Kiva again any time soon? I’ve decided that (for as long as my financial state remains about as good as it is now) every time my loan gets repaid, I’ll reinvest the money, and put in another $25. And just to make things more interesting, I’ve given myself a project: I’m making all of my loans to widowed women.
I know with the economy as it is people have less to give. But given the news of the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling the need to do something good for women, and I feel better about this kind of direct help than another donation to Planned Parenthood or NARAL or some other totally impotent big name organization.
If the Health care bill goes through as it is, maybe someone could set up microloans to help American women finance their abortions.
Sorry about the incoherence, it’s late.
That’s a good idea!
This is good from Gasparino on the greedy banksters and the administration letting them get away. http://bit.ly/1GxM84
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6907681.ece
IT WAS THE GREATEST SPEECH ABOUT DEAD PEOPLE evaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHHH!
I heard about a minute of BO talking today and had to turn the radio off. All, I could think was “empty words”. He does love to showboat.
If teh ONE’s lips were long enough he would kiss himself.
I’ve heard that remark often — but fits teh ONE exactly.
If he were limber enough he could do more than kiss himself.
I saw a bit of it. I think it was thoughtful of whomever to position the prompters so when he read he got that squinty-eyed looking off into the distance thing cuz the sun was in his eyes. Made him look “noble”. Heh.
Yea! The DNC boycott is ON! I see Americablog has joined forces with some big, big names to complain about being ignored by the boyz in charge. Funny though, on Americablog, he has a list of greivances, half of which happened during the Primaries. Are they really just noticing this stuff? They didn’t realize that they too, were/are invisible. I’d say better late than never but the damage is done. Still no apology or anything like that to us deadenders.
http://gay.americablog.com/2009/11/dont-ask-dont-give.html
Tuff sh!t for Aravosis. He practically felated Obama during the primaries after he threw over HRC. He got what he deserves and it’s pathetic that he’s getting indignant over it now.
It’s amazing that all these exRepubs didn’t lead us to the promised land, isn’t it?
The Obama camp was full of ex Repubs-but it was Pumas who were deliberately branded as “Repub-ratfuckers”
Yeah, they got out there early with that accusation – they accused Hillary too.
It was to innoculate themselves.
A “pause” in donations. I’m sure that will put the fear into the DNC that the nutroots won’t come running back to them at election time.
Lol They can’t even manage a sternly worded letter. We will vote against you after we vote for you–as long as it isn’t Election Day.
My pause is rather permanent, it appears.
I call it “the pause that refreshes.”
🙂
permanent donation-pause…Hope and The Change
Nobama – keep the change.
Still, Jane and the boys don’t say peep about women’s rights!
The sell-outs have decided (or gotten directions) on which side the wind is blowing.
This is a distraction from women’s issue and an effort to split the angry left. There would be a repeal of DADT (which I think even the military wants), and then Jane and her friends will declare victory.
BTW – has anyone identified how much ‘Pork’ is in the proposed Men’s Health Care Bill?
Loved the heading and everything until I saw Raygun’s face on the embed. Sorry, no can do. Much as I am angry with him for pushing health club for men today, this is the standard
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton%27s_speech_following_the_Oklahoma_City_Bombing,_1995
Found the video
I have family in OKC and I’ve been to the memorial.
Until 9-11 it was the worst terrorist attack in the US and a “red-blooded” American did it.
Do you know if the tree he mentions is still there at the White House?
I didn’t listen to him give the speech, I read it on Fox news. From reading the speech,I would have to say it was extraordinarily well written. How he delivered it I don’t know cause I refuse to watch him, but for whoever actually wrote that peice? It was good.