Obama’s Four Bagger
That was one helluva speech from Barack Obama.
It simply doesn't get much better than that.
Where do I begin?
First and foremost, it was GREAT for the first time in eight years to NOT see a snarling Dick Cheney hunching behind a bumbling, half-literate president.
Wonderful it was to hear a president who spoke to the nation as if we were adults. Someone with a sharp, organized mind. Someone who appealed to all of our better angels, and didn't stoop to the tactics of fear and division.
Someone who delivered the most populist presidential appeal in recent history but who avoided any nod toward demagogy.
Someone who made me proud as he clearly and unequivocally renounced the use of torture.
Someone who didn't flinch from decrying the exuberant excessiveness that has run our country into a ditch.
Someone who demonstrated the boldness to think in terms of Big Vision... none of the comic book jingoism of a George W. Bush nor the V-Chip-school-uniform applet politics of a Bill Clinton.
Overall, it was a commanding performance from an enormous political talent.
If I were I Republican, it's time to be very afraid. Might as well pack up the camels and expect a LONG winding trek through a very dry political desert.
If Bobby Jindal is the best the GOP can come up with, then imagine walking barefoot through the Gobi in August.
I have zero idea if Obama and the Dems are gonna be successful and just how and when or even if we will rise from this economic catastrophe.
What I am absolutely certain of is that the Republicans are toast until further notice.
Choose your favorite modifier: tone-deaf, clueless, deaf-dumb-and-blind. Or better yet, all of the above. Jindal's response was little more than a joke. Robotically denouncing the idea of a government assistance at a time when a vast majority of Americans are desperately looking toward massive and effective government intervention in the economy as our last best resort before Depression 2.0. What kind of fool gets in front of the nation and asks for support for a Republican Party that was the same Republican Party he denounced as "the bureaucrats" who bungled the Katrina disaster?
This is pure Orwellian claptrap and the nation knows it.
Obama hits one into the parking lot. Jindal whiffs on a high slow curve.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Great speech from a real talent. Jindal – just the opposite!
February 25th, 2009 at 7:04 am
Both Ezra Klein and Andrew Sullivan, in quick response mode, compared Jindal to Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock. Devastatingly accurate.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:08 am
In the light of his strategy to make Americans wary of big government schemes by clueless bureaucrats, Jindal missed a huge opportunity by not attacking the architects of the Iraq war.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:52 am
One interesting thing about Obama — when he uses his (admittedly unusual) biography to make points about America’s inclusive vision/values it doesn’t come off as political posturing. It sounds as if he means it, feels it and it rings true.
When young Bobby tried to summon similar metaphors from his (admittedly unusual) biography, they sounded hackneyed and fell flat. Even the father’s grocery store epiphany.
And the fact that no internal editor would put the brakes on the Katrina references (where big guvmnt apparently crossed up all those poised to bring real local-style salvation) — I’d call that something of a head-scratcher.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Actually, Marc, Jindal missed a change-up in his wheelhouse. I saw one conspiracy theory post at Huffington that said Republicans didn’t want Jindal for 2012 because they don’t think he can beat Obama, so they let him sacrifice himself last night. I doubt that was the intent … but that may well be what happened.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Just what I expected from you guys…you prefer form over substance. Obama had form but no substance, and Jindal had substance but bad form.
Obama was supposed to give a speech about the economy, but it was all about long-term, big government, left-wing programs, more about making loans to those unqualified, paying off teachers unions, raising tax money with phony carbon credits, gutting the military but ramping up fighting in Afganistan, telling businessmen how to run their businesses by people who never had to meet payrolls, playing on wealth envy, buyiing votes with others tax money, setting up his “volunteer youth brigade,” and breaking America with huge financial burdens and making us weaker in the world.
Where were all the action plans to help employee people immediately rather than making them wards of the state? Quite missing. That doesn’t bother any of you?!
No wonder that those who liked the speech are you and those in other countries who would like to see us brought down. What Obama proposed will do just that, and what he didn’t propose could have helped us.
Oh, but it felt good, didn’t it? Such you would expect from emotion rather than logic driven people.
You can read polls, but Wall Street is giving its response today. It’s not good for our nation, but who cares as long as it helps Democrats, which is what I’ve said for years–Democrats cheer for our problems just to gain power, and Democrats do what’s popular to buy votes rather than do what’s right.
If helping our nation is the measure of a batting metaphor, Obama just fouled off a bunt. He costs more per hit than Alex Rodriguez would in a million lifetimes. At some point, people will see that the promises don’t measure up to results. For the sake of the Democrats, hope that the youth brigade can hold back the fan rebellion.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Well, Woody, your comments are certainly in line with your sad, white, sterile, encyclopedia reading, Superman obsessed, bible thumping childhood laced not with a single Christian value, but only the high dudgeon and madness one comes to expect from the white south.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Others are turning down the wasteful hand-outs:
February 25th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Anna, I can sense the envy in your tone because you’re not white.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Another rejection of Obama-aid: Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Marc, “dumb” as in “deaf, dumb and blind” was thrown on the trash heap of offensive epithets along with “queer”, “nigger” and “kike” about 30 or 40 years ago. Where were you? I’m sure it was not your intention, but…
February 25th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Agree with the assessment of Obama’s speech. Very powerful stuff. What I thought was absolutely stunning was where the President went a bit populist and railed for about three minutes on the bad banks and bankers, but then pulled up and said, “… but we can not governor out of anger. We have to governor on what’s right [for the country]…” He validates peoples’ frustration and anger — but insists on leading with principal. I can’t think a single current politician who could have so deftly managed this pivot maneuver. Did you see the ‘in awe’ look on Sen. Kerry’s face? Had the look of ‘oh, this is what the people wanted…”
February 25th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Woody you are just upset because you never imagined that Superman would turn out to be…an African American! His civilian disguise and alter-ego… the President!
February 25th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Jindal (mentioned on other thread) was channeling Mr Rogers. The Republican party needs group therapy or massive injections of anti-psychotic drug laced Kool-Aid.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Smiley-con David Brooks on Jindal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X27UIt0RuMw
February 25th, 2009 at 9:35 am
It made me stand up and cheer
Obama Rocks !!!!!!!
February 25th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Great catch reg!
Brooks: “…disaster…not where the country is…insane…”
ROFL
February 25th, 2009 at 9:51 am
While Jindal’s assertion that there’s $8 billion for a high speed train from Las Vegas to Disneyland in the Recovery bill is a GOP fabrication, it amazes me that Republicans think high-speed rail is some kind of wacky notion or that they live in a country where people would simply scoff at the notion of building modern, fast transit between two of the country’s most popular recreational destination points. One congressional GOPer has even called it a “sin train” – I’m not kidding. These guys are increasingly from another planet.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Yeah, AMTRAK has been such a great financial success, so why not spend a few billion more duplicating it everywhere!?
It’s funny that the Democrats want to build a train to Las Vegas after Obama told people to quit spending their money there.
I see that most of your attention is on Jindal rather than on any substance or lack therof in Obama’s speech. Tell me how his program, as laid out in his speech, will add 3.5 million jobs at all (down from 4 million), much less any time soon. So, jobs aren’t important…political victories and rhetoric rule.
Oh, but you can keep blaming corporate jets for no jobs rather than a president with no understanding about economics, which is what we have.
Oh, did you like that part in Obama’s speech about the Stimulus Bill containing no earmarks? I know that Congress didn’t read the bill before they voted on it, but Obama could have taken the time before he signed it and made his speech. I believe that he made a slight mistake there.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
So a commitment to expanding rail transit won’t create any jobs? You know how to lay rail without paying humans to do it? That’s a Republican dream de pipe.
If funds for the “Disneyland-to-Vegas” train is in the bill–and credible sources say it is not–it is fine with me. It is way past time that this country commit itself to mass transit as part of the process of weaning off petroleum.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I figured Jindal would be pretty poor, as he is highly overrated and off on the social right fringe, but he was worse than I expected. Remarkably bad.
Hard to believe he’s a Rhodes Scholar, as his message was even worse than his performance.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
“his message was even worse than his performance.”
Brutal…
February 25th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
MC: you can create jobs by busting rocks, but that doesn’t make the project cost-justified. Anyway, who likes to ride mass transit when you have to stand by, you know, those people.
I’ll drive my gasoline car as long as there is gas at the pumps and oil in ANWR and offshore that will make us energy independent.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Oops. I didn’t mean to use a colon which could be interpreted as attributing that statement to MC, but I suspect that most of you knew that it was not from him.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Thanks for the clarification, Woody.
OK, now you are conceding (in contrast to your 8:27 posting) that Obama did set forth ideas for immediate employment. Which of course he did. Is it cost-justified? That is a different debate. The fact is that the administration learned its lesson: trusting the banks to lend to create jobs may not be the best way to put people to work and thus to get the economy working.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I meant: “get the economy moving.” Gotta be precise when using cliches.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Michael, do you know how long it takes for financial approval, bidding, engineering studies, land acquistion, environmental disputes, and final designs before any meaningful jobs are provided for the rail project? Years and years and years! Rome wasn’t built in a day and, anyway, most of the rail jobs would be taken by coolies coming in from S.F.
- – -
The Obama’s are relying upon Ted Kennedy to help them choose a dog: The first lady favors Portuguese Water Dogs as a breed…. Obama friend and political ally, Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, is also fond of Portuguese Water Dogs—he has two and even authored a children’s book featuring his pup, Splash.
Name it Mary Jo.
- – -
Here’s your corporate jets: LINK
February 25th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Fix…. Here’s your corporate jets: LINK
February 25th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Woody, your point about the time necessary to acquire rights-of-way, etc, is well-taken if we are discussing the mythical “railway of sin” from Vegas to Anaheim. However, that apparently is not in the bill. The provisions I have seen, particularly those in California and the midwest, have to do with repairing or replacing, then utilizing, land and rights-of-way already acquired. (As for my knowledge of the subject, check out a case called McComic v Burlington, Northern.)
February 25th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
MC, how’s that rapid transit program coming along in Los Angeles? Pretty slow, huh?
And, the biggest problem with rapid transit is not the construction but the continuing operating costs, which are not covered by the stimulus. How do you keep the trains running once they are built?
Here’s the simple picture of L.A. mass transit. I like page two.
The main jobs seem to be for politicians and lawyers. At least it could help you. However, construction workers will have college degrees before they get a chance to work on new projects.
Bottom Line – Transit talk is nice but, like most of Obama’s plan from last night, it’s a phony solution for short-term employment needs.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Ya know, I hadn’t read the insert I posted. But now Have. It pretty much speaks to everything that gets batted about here. And certainly “frames” Woody.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Hey, Anna, that makes you like Obama and Democrats in Congress. They hadn’t read the Stimulus Bill before they passed it. However, I have no idea as to any insert that you posted here.
Still, talking about me is not a defense for a non-plan to create jobs.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Here is the link. I posted the whole thing. Think its too long for a post.
The Imprisoned American Mind.
http://www.swans.com/library/art10/mgarci19.html
February 25th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Found this comment describing Wacky Jindal:
“Weird. A vaguely-Indian looking man with a Southern accent. I wonder if he hates himself for taking his own job.”
Man, this is gonna’ be a fun sixteen years! Maybe that will be enough time for a new party to spring up from the sad remains of the Gangrenous Old Party. Eh, prolly not.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
“Hard to believe he’s a Rhodes Scholar, as his message was even worse than his performance.”
Zing! Bill Bradley nails it. It was like the time I saw a cluelessly-driven Lexus skid on an icy road and plow into a steady-drivin’, beat up Sanford-and-Son-esque pickup truck. The whole event unfolded literally in slow motion, since traffic was moving slowly, so it made you cringe to watch the inevitable.
Luckily no one got hurt in the car crash. But last night’s crash?
Ouch.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Jindal deracinated himself. He comes from an Indian Hindu family. To fit in to the white southern weirdness as a kid he adopted the fundamentalist claptrap. So a guy raised to use his mind and respect differences does get a first rate education but his own psychology sand bags him.
I saw news bite of him during RNC Convention middle of Gustav and despite what I already knew about him identifying with the lunatic Right, he came across as a normal, sane, weary official trying to deal with a crisis and said he had no time for politics–at that moment.
What he revealed in that Mr Rogers Goes to Washington performance was that he was being psychically sand bagged. I think the guy is not expressing what he truly believes but has twisted himself into a self serving pretzel. It all just blew up in his face. That is not how he normally sounds.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Pyush Jindal /?d??nd?l/) was born on June 10, 1971 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Punjabi Indian immigrants Amar and Raj Jindal, who had recently arrived for Amar to attend graduate school at Louisiana State University.[1] His father, Amar, left India and his ancestral family village of Khanpura in 1970,[3] and his parents took their citizenship oaths later that year to become naturalized citizens. His mother, Amar, is an information technology director for the Louisiana Department of Labor.[4] According to family lore, Jindal chose to re-name himself “Bobby” inspired by the sitcom character Bobby Brady after watching The Brady Bunch television series at the age of four. He has been known by his self-adopted nickname ever since—as a civil servant, politician, student, and writer—though legally his name remains Piyush Jindal.[5]
Jindal was born and raised a Hindu, but converted to Catholicism in high school.[6] Jindal’s Catholic faith includes a solidarity with other Christian denominations; he has given speeches and offered religious testimony before Baptist and Pentecostal congregations.[7] He attended public school at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. Following high school, Jindal attended Brown University, graduating with honors in biology and public policy.[8] Although he had thought of a career in medicine or law and was accepted by Harvard Medical School[citation needed] and Yale Law School[citation needed], he chose to pursue a political career. He received a master’s degree in political science from New College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I just watched Jindal. That was his Waterloo. He’s done.
“I said Sheriff, what’s got you so riled up?” It’s a giant sandwich of yee haw, down-home phony baloney.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
“We believe Americans can do anything!” His delivery is so wonderfully earnest and heartfelt, so completely determined, so grippingly authentic I can almost see the hickory slingshot dangling from his back pocket.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay, and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned.
To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend – because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America.
Gosh, I love the poor, underpaid, small- budget military and their misunderstood world policeman role.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
sacred trust my ass.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Jindal can prove that he was born in the United States.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Pray tell, Anna, how does a “deracinated” white person act?
February 25th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
“First and foremost, it was GREAT for the first time in eight years to NOT see a snarling Dick Cheney hunching behind a bumbling, half-literate president.”
Yeah, now we have the perpetual ‘deer in the headlights’ look of Pelosi.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I knew that would pull you out of the woodwork, WC.
Read the Wiki bio I posted. If you had, you wouldn’t be asking such an idiotic question and you would have gotten the irony of my abusing your “deracinated” concept.
A highly educated person and from an educated family and rich cultural heritage such as Jindal is who found himself in dumb ass white Louisisana gutted himself in order to fit in. So what we got on the tube last night was the example of how the American experience can “deracinate” someone. Its like some people, depending on their personal psychology react to abuse by becoming abusers and some become highly sensitized, gifted people. Jindal identified with his “abusers”, i.e. he became a chameleon and lost his soul.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Jindal could have embraced liberalism, or else non-assimilation. For instance, he could have moved to the huge upper-class Indian community in nearby Houston. Instead, he made the decision to assimilate into the country and region that he found himself in. And guess what? The white voters of “dumb ass white Louisiana,” who 16 years ago had given sixty percent of their vote to David Duke, looked at him, how he behaved and what he had to say, and decided to make him their governor. What a bunch of incorrigible bigots.
Just think of how much less “racism” (that is, the fear and loathing of the pathologies that tend to run rampant in unassimilated minority communities) there would be if more non-whites in America behaved like Bobby Jindal.
Though I suspect the racism that YOU display, based on envy and low self-esteem rather than fear of pathology, will always be a problem.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Dear President Obama, I hope you take these suggestions for their intent, not as criticisms:
1. Please stop frightening the people with dire negative
crises, market crashing, hand-wringing language. Even
if you believe it, you are our leader now and need to
inspire is for the future. Remember FDRs’ ‘The only thing
we have to fear is fear” and you are generating it.
2. Please restrain the old rocking chair socialists,
Nancy and Harry, from doing the same by talking
about crazy things like Mortgage cram-downs by
a third dis-intrersted party….a judge. Mr. President,
would you lend your money to help another family
to buy their first home if you knew a judge could
change the terms of your Contract with this family
to pay you back, encouraging them to do just
that? Of course you wouldn’t, and neither will others
investing in our mortgages and securities. This crazy
talk is killing further depressing the value of homes,
and the rest of us.
3. Mr. President, I love your oratory and self
confidence, but at some point we need you to show
some follow through. When are you going to, or at
least allow the time for our lawmakers to, go
through line-by-line the spending stuff Nancy and
Harry have dreamed up? They have just spent close
to a Trillion dollars when interest on
February 26th, 2009 at 8:09 am
…the money we don’t have, called indebtedness to China is counted, and they are on the brink of another
half Trillion. You say well all are going to have to sacrifice Mr. President, and I agree. What I am asking is where when is Congress and the White House going to show some sacrifice? Give some beef Mr. President.
We’ve eaten pork for so long now, trichinosis is setting in and we’re getting very sick.
Please show some follow-through to your words Mr. President. Please reign-in the excesses of Washington you have inherited. Please stop the Jetting, curtain hanging, and unrelenting pork sandwiches, now served with gravy. Thanks for nothing….so far.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Wow, I just have to re-post reg’s link to the David Brooks comments on Jindal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X27UIt0RuMw
Spot on, Brooks. He pretty much nails the core problem for the GOP: the party is split between those who think that the Republicans have become too kooky and those who think that Republicans have become too moderate. Jindal, obviously, believes the latter. And that’s why the GOP is in trouble.
The new GOP: The Nihilist Party!
February 26th, 2009 at 10:28 am
White Boy writes:
“Just think of how much less “racism” (that is, the fear and loathing of the pathologies that tend to run rampant in unassimilated minority communities) there would be if more non-whites in America behaved like Bobby Jindal.”
No, you ignorant slut, Jindal is a product of assimilation and an example of true “deracination”. His inability to communicate such an absurd, surreal load of horse shit is probably testament to a still somewhat intact healthy psyche balking at such a betrayal of his native intelligence and cultural heritage.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Jesus H Christ Anna. Jindal sucks because he became an American? Your self-loathing is almost boundless. No wait, self-loathing isn’t right, because you, as you never fail to tell us, are above the dirty American life that the proles lead.
As far as I can tell, every culture in the world is better than the American one. The Brits know how to party. Europe knows how to write poetry. India has intellectual capacity. All in contrast to the stupidity of Americans who just spend their days contemplating their own diapers while drooling into their strained peas.
Balter is right to call you out.
Unless he was being ironic, but since you’re the only one who understands irony, I just can’t be sure.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Brutal Dan, but necessary.
I rather believe Anna is the one at drool cup age, now having too much time on her hands to think about all the injustices done her in a cruel world.
She could’a been a contender, if only…..
February 26th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Dan O: every culture in the world is better than the American one
I know that was an overreach, but the American culture of personal liberty, opportunities, and achievement have made this world a much better place than all the fancy gasbags in Europe and the rest of the world.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
You don’t get out much do you, Woody.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Ditto that to the rest of you.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
As to Jindal…you are too fucking thick to even contemplate anything other than he is a two dimensional cartoon. Another validation for my despised view on the intellectual vacuity of Americans.
The more you are unable to see beneath the surface of anything the more you prove my points. Bunch of fucking cyphers the lot of you.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Lackoff or Jack off or whatever his name is has you guys out there proving his point that Americans are “framed”. Especially “liberals”. Predictable, treacherous and limited.
February 26th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Here is a peace offering. Was sent to me today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus
January 8th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
One click later I found this, today I will sleep in peace, thank you for writing this. Kopek mamasi