Now, far be it from me to defend any Republican, especially of the teabagging persuasion, but is this really the first time in the history of the world that a speaker, on television or anywhere else, paused to hydrate his palate?
I repeat:
Big.
Fucking.
Deal.
Perhaps the water was spiked with a sedative to calm Rubio's jitters at having to give the speech without a teleprompter.
The only thing we ever learn from history is that we never learn from history. Unless, of course, you are running for re-election during war time. In that case, the lesson is, keep the war going through to Election Day because everyone loves a "War President". After all, it worked for Nixon in 1972 and Bush in 2004.
In President Obama's speech on the Afghanistan war pull-out, he proposed (in round numbers):
10,000 troops out in the near term (to satiate the peaceniks)
20,000 troops out by the end of November 2012 (how convenient)
With roughly 100,000 troops currently in Afghanistan, this leaves - again in round numbers - 70,000 troops still in country, scheduled to leave in 2014. Of course there is no guarantee this will actually happen.
Why not pull them all out now? Does anyone realistically believe the situation in Afghanistan will be at all improved between now and 2014?
Take a look at this word cloud from the President's speech. Can you find the word "PEACE" in there anywhere? I'm still looking.
Too lazy to write my own blog today, so here is the transcript from the Let Me Finish" segment of Hardball. Chris Matthews can sometimes be obnoxious and buffoonish, but when he is good, he is very very good, as he is here, calling out Mike Huckabee and his ilk for their attacks on the President and not-so-subtle appeals to the racist, right-wing base:
“Let Me Finish” tonight with this horrible talk we‘re hearing in this country. I was out last night in California, Los Angeles, with a large of former Peace Corps volunteers like me. We were at UCLA talking about the Corps‘ 50th anniversary this week, ever since John F. Kennedy decided it was a good idea to get young Americans out there in the world, helping countries develop, sharing some of our American “can do” spirit, and in the process, learning something about how the rest of the world looks at things.
It came to me that everything good about that is being assaulted these days. This guy, Huckabee, and Gingrich and W. before him were out there trashing the whole idea of learning anything from about world, anything from the rest of the world. This whole stupidization of things that began with Bush‘s inane attempt to rename French fries.
Now, this guy, Huckabee, is going around the right wing radio world singing the song that our president isn‘t really one of us, because his father, who stayed with him until the age of 2 infected him with some kind of foreignness. You know, he‘s a Kenyan, he‘s a secret Muslim, he‘s over there where those African people, where those different people live.
I thought we were beyond this yahoo talk, this fear of the world, this monkey trial nonsense. But we‘re not, are we? We‘ve got knuckleheads promenading around the right wing radio belt playing to the God knows who crowd saying how Obama was somehow involved with the Mau Maus, hanging around madrassa schools—all the while that this young kid way back then trying to make it in this country.
And all he did, everything he did was right as a regular American kid, playing basketball on a championship team in Hawaii. That‘s what I wanted to do growing up, be a championship basketball player. He went to Catholic school, like I did. He got into Occidental College in California, then to Columbia University. And then he went to Ivy League and with the Harvard Law where he made that law review.
What more do you want his kid to do? He‘s done everything right.
Look at his marriage. Michelle has done everything right. Her brother is a top basketball coach out of Oregon State. Their kids look like they‘re right out of a picture book. This isn‘t just the American Dream, it‘s done (ph) near perfect.
And what is this right wing goon squad doing? They keep talking about his father, his grandfather. What about his grandfather who fought under Patton in World War II? What do these people are looking for? Some evidence that he‘s black? Is that it?
They ought to be ashamed of themselves. You know what‘s un-America?
Huckabee and Newt and the rest of them—this stuff is.
That‘s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.
I'll give the President a B+ for delivery, and a B for content. The President laid out some bold ideas about infrastructure and education, but in my opinion failed to hammer home enough the job-creating effects of things like high-speed rail and clean energy.
The problem is, when you have an opposition party that does not believe in science, and a Congress that is bought and paid for by the oil companies, how can you expect to get any of these measure through?
The "Sputnik moment" analogy was false. The space race was largely about political ideology; proving we were better than the Commies. Who's our opposition here? China? With the space race, there was a measurable, specific destination - the moon - and a definition of success - getting there.
How will we define success in today's "Sputnik moment"?
I was disappointed to hear only a passing mention of the wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan, the usual platitudes about supporting the troops and disabling al Qaeda, and beginning to bring the troops home in July. Why wait?
Finally, a word cloud, featuring the prominence and non-prominence of words used in the speech. Draw your own conclusions.
How stupid/naive are the Democrats? a.) Very b.) Extremely c.) Quite a bit d.) All of the above.
As you know by now, much ado is being made about the Democrats and Republicans sitting amongst each other rather than separately. Some Democrats are absolutely giddy about the prospect of sitting next to their Republican colleagues. Will this usher in a new spirit of bipartisanship? Don't bet on it.
When will they ever learn that the Republicans are not interested in working with the Democrats on anything? As soon as the President is finished with his speech, by tomorrow the Republicans will be getting back to work on their agenda, beginning with attempting to chip away at Roe v Wade and further restrict reproductive rights. Economic recovery can wait, because the economy is working quite well for the real Republican base, thank you.
What about jobs? How about removing the word "bipartisanship" from the vocabulary and replacing it with "jobs"? The President and his Democratic cohorts in Congress can take a lesson from the Republicans, and name every bill they introduce "The Job-Creating {insert name of bill here}".
It's about JOBS, Mr. President. Not "stimulus", not "bipartisanship", not a new spirit of cooperation and national unity.
With the death Sargent Shriver earlier this week, and Ted Sorensen this past October, that's about it for Camelot (if it ever really existed).
It was fifty years ago today that John F. Kennedy gave his stirring Inaugural Address. I was three years old at the time so of course I do not remember watching it live, but I've seen it so many times I feel like I was there. The words still stir today.
Note to President Obama: the Torch has been passed to you; please do something with it!
At the risk of offending my fellow Liberals and Obamacrats, I was underwhelmed and unimpressed by the spectacle in Arizona last night. What was meant to be a memorial service for the victims of Saturday's shooting in Tucson, and a call for national unity, looked more like a Golden Globes or Academy Award ceremony than a solemn tribute, rife with self-congratulation and applause for anyone and everyone involved. The fact that a member of Congress was one of those shot made this a national story. People are shot and killed every day on the streets of places like Philadelphia and Camden, but these incidents barely register as news items.
The only inspirational speech was made by Daniel Hernandez, the intern whose quick reaction after the shooting may have saved Gabrielle Giffords' life. In his brief speech, Hernandez rejected he label, "hero", and praised the first responders who came to the aid of those who were shot and the doctors who continue to care for the injured.
The President's speech was too long, and his calls for bipartisanship and national unity will quickly be forgotten in a day or two as the Republicans in Congress get back to the business of opposing everything on the President's agenda (what is his agenda, anyway?) and the futile effort to repeal "Obamacare".
As for President, Obama, in the event he is ever called upon again to offer words in the wake of some national tragedy or disaster, he should borrow a page from his political hero, Abraham Lincoln, whose 270 word (more or less) Gettysburg address he paraphrased last night. The Tuscon shooting, as tragic as it was, was no Gettysburg, and Barack Obama is no Abraham Lincoln.
