Open Mic Obama
In the wake of this weekend's annual White House Correspondents' Dinner (ably chronicled here by Mollie), President Obama is getting media props for his deft touch with humor behind the podium. I'm not sure what the big deal is; we know the president doesn't need a packed house to get off a zinger. After all, here he is, as reported in Jodi Kantor's book, The Obamas (h/t to Jim Geraghty at NRO):
The president had been taking questions for almost an hour. He had apologetically told the mostly liberal crowd that he had been forced to take a centrist point of view in his presidency because of divided government. (Never mind that Obama had told conservative Democrats in Congress that he was one of them, too: “I’m a Blue Dog at heart,” he had said in more than one meeting.)
Ah yes, our president: the centrist misunderstood by liberals, and the liberal misunderstood by centrists. The guy who cites Ronald Reagan to push for tax increases and channels his inner Teddy Roosevelt on the stump in Kansas. Who can fathom the mysteries of his post-partisan ideology, the man himself being a riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a press release?
Well, I can. I took up this topic recently in my weekly column for the Center for Individual Freedom. In "Barack Obama, America's Most Radical Moderate," I wrote:
So who is this man now attempting to convince us that he’s a judicious centrist unmoored from ideology? Well, he’s the fellow whose first major legislative accomplishment was a $787 billion spending bill, the largest in American history. He’s the guy who said that under his preferred energy policies, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” He’s the man who racked up more federal debt in three years than George W. Bush did in eight. And he’s the only president in American history to ram through a major, bank-busting entitlement (ObamaCare) over widespread public opposition.
How about his thoughtful generosity towards those who disagree with him? In an interview on Univision, Obama encouraged Latino voters to head to the polls with the attitude that, “We’re gonna punish our enemies.” He compared Republican opponents of his alternative energy policies (which included the infamous $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, the California solar power firm that eventually went bankrupt) to “founding members of the Flat Earth Society.” And he accused the GOP of practicing “thinly veiled Social Darwinism” for proposing a budget that actually had the temerity to propose taming the federal government’s spendthrift fiscal habits.
Sorry, but there's nothing here to unify those who occupy the country's ideological poles. Except perhaps for this: that Barack Obama sure can tell a joke.
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Comments:
Mar '11
Re: Open Mic Obama
The joke is on the American voters who believed this guy is a Blue Dog admirer of Reagan. No, he eats... oh, never mind.
Edited on April 30, 2012 at 8:36pmAug '10
Re: Open Mic Obama
See, I think he was misquoted - What he really said was, "I am a Bleu Dog at heart" expressing a preference for Canine Cordon Bleu and it was misinterpreted.
I also heard he likes Weiner Schnitzel.
Mar '11
Re: Open Mic Obama
It must be nice to be a Democrat. Every sin, every lie, every obfuscation, every outrageous statement is downplayed by the mainstream media. No wonder Democrats don't believe in consequences for most actions, Democrat politicians never pay any consequences themselves.
Dec '10
Re: Open Mic Obama
Obama is a keen student of the public reaction to the media. He saw how Palestinian politicians could thrive by saying soothing, emollient things about peace in English to a Western audience and turning around and pledging armed resistance in Arabic to their domestic audience.
The current conventional wisdom is that a politician can't really get away with that kind of telling-each-audience-what-it-wants-to-hear behavior, because the Internet and phone cams make it impossible to keep the message to one audience away from other audiences to whom the politician has said the opposite.
However, this conventional wisdom doesn't account for two factors: first, a whole lot of people aren't interested in looking for information that contradicts the nice things the politician told them, and second, people have a very deep capacity for rationalizing the behavior of people they like. When confronted with the same guy saying the opposite thing to another audience, people often assume he's lying to the other people and telling them the truth. As the old joke goes, "Who you gonna believe - me or your own eyes?"
Jul '10
Re: Open Mic Obama
We should probably be grateful that Obama doesn't speak another language, not that this stops him from lecturing us about it.
Oct '10
Re: Open Mic Obama
Instugator
See, I think he was misquoted - What he really said was, "I am a Bleu Dog at heart" expressing a preference for Canine Cordon Bleu and it was misinterpreted.
I also heard he likes Weiner Schnitzel.
He might have been trying to say that eating Bleu Dog is good for your heart.
Nov '10
Re: Open Mic Obama
Obama has a crack team of writers. You can tell the difference as soon as he goes off script. He's trying for a comparison to Reagan, but his delivery is far too stiff. Further, many of Reagan's greatest lines really were off-the-cuff. His depth and rhetorical dynamic was very impressive. Obama is a dime-store facade in comparison.
Romney has the advantage of not pretending at being a great speaker; he's got nothing to live up to. Obama has seriously tarnished his "gravitas" in the hope of seeming more hip. Perhaps it will work, but I suspect not. If it does, then we will miss having Gingrich at the head of the ticket. Why? This sort of thing puts Gingrich at a huge advantage. Nobody -- least of all Obama -- can do a clear takedown of The Newt in a live, unscripted battle of wits and factual arguments. The stage is littered with professional speakers who've tried.
But as long as Obama clings to the mantle of Court Jester, Romney will win with his everyman persona and simple get-er-done serious demeanour.
Apr '11
Re: Open Mic Obama
R. Craigen, you happen to be making this astute comment in a conversation begun by a skilled speechwriter himself. This is a point (Obama's rather poor ability to speak ex tempore, in contrast with Reagan's) that I would love for Troy to expound on. Maybe someday?
Re: Open Mic Obama
Capt. S ~
I'll put a note in my tickler file to do something on Obama as a speaker in the near future. For a contrast with Reagan, however, our dear Mr. Robinson is of course the best candidate to offer his thoughts.
Capt. Spaulding
R. Craigen, you happen to be making this astute comment in a conversation begun by a skilled speechwriter himself. This is a point (Obama's rather poor ability to speak ex tempore, in contrast with Reagan's) that I would love for Troy to expound on. Maybe someday? · 7 minutes ago
Jul '11
Re: Open Mic Obama
So was Joe Wilson wrong, or just ahead of the curve?