President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Peter Robinson ·
September 7, 2012 at 6:52am
Oh, all right, I'll confess. I missed it. It's been one of those days. And as one of that odd group that makes a living by spouting political opinions, I suppose that sometime over the weekend I'll have to watch the whole darned thing. But in the meantime could my fellow Ricochetti do me a favor? Could you compose a crib sheet for me?
Two questions:
1. What's the very, very best that could be said about President Obama's convention speech in Charlotte tonight? Force yourself.
2. Now relax. What did you really think?
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Don't feel like you have to waste the weekend on it. If you caught any other speech he has given, this was it.
Rinse and repeat.
Apr '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
The best thing about it is the fact that it could be the last speech he will give to a group of Democrats. It is old.
Don't think it accomplished much. After being critical of Romney for not advancing anything specific, he went on to not say anything specific. Gives a great speech, but the content was missing.
Apr '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Oh...and had it happened at the stadium it wouldn't have excited them as much as it did in the packed hall.
Jul '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
1)If you were a liberal it was inspiring and hopeful while insulting Romney. Apparently Obama gave a penny for the Old Guy at the end.
2) Someone else answered this better.
We are the hollow men
Edited on September 7, 2012 at 7:02amWe are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
1) It had a great and passionate beginning and the entire speech resonated completely with the audience, who loved it.
2) I thought it was confusing and weird. It would have worked if he were running against the sitting president or if the economy were even slightly better.
Apr '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Best: nothing new here; he delivered it as if he'd done it a thousand times before...because he has.
My take: Clinton was the, um, climactic moment of the convention. That seems to me to sound a wrong note for The Won.
Edited on September 7, 2012 at 7:07amOct '10
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
I decided to give myself an attitude adjustment uptick...and skip politics all day. All I heard was 2-3 minutes of the usual.
The facts that a) so many people are still enthralled with this snake oil salesman and b) that Romney's team is playing small ball have totally turned me off - at least for today.
I now end the day a happy camper.
Jan '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
The best thing about the speech is that it gives Romney's team a lot to work with. This is how the debate will be fought. For example, R needs to figure out how to simplify his message about the auto bailout vs structured bankruptcy so that Joe Average who doesn't follow politics says "Oh yeah I Get what he meant". For me the speech was kinda "meh". When you see someone do the same magic trick several times it gets boring, and not that magical anymore
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
There was that moment when he lifted his chin and said something in confident tones, and I suddenly believed he could get unemployment to 7.7. Maybe lower.
Jun '10
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
While he was enthralling his audience, I was reading Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War. I think I enjoyed the evening more than those who suffered through the insufferable Obama.
Jun '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
1) An impassioned rendition of Obama's greatest hits, tweaked to appear newish for an audience that will applaud anything he does.
2) I was surprised by his stubborn devotion to 70's era garden variety tax & spend-threatening to explode into democratic socialism. He appears to have learned nothing from his adversity in office. He remains shockingly ignorant of basic principles of pro-growth, free-market economics. I don't even think he understands Keynes. His every mawkish gesture towards public service is belied by his absolute self absorption and self regard. He applauds himself for exhorting his minions that "You are the change." His construction of strawman arguments appears pathological, as opposed to Clinton-calculated.
Here was an opportunity to win back his lost voters with a "mea culpa, but I have learned from this and NOW I see the light." He could have offered SOLUTIONS, acknowledging directly that people need full-time work and the economy needs growth.
Instead he aggrandized himself, indulged his expansive fancy and chewed scenery.
A one trick pony.
Nov '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Like one of those over-the-counter energy drinks.
Canned excitement. Zero nutritional value.
Essential Ingredients, by now familiar, in somewhat arbitrary proportions: class warfare; group rights; good daddy government; invest; spread the wealth; a little "USA USA USA" lest any question patriotism; ginseng; foam; vitamin B; reconstituted cow dung; all organic; 100 percent glutten-free; hope but no change.
The buzz gets shorter every time and wears off before morning. Then the Dems will go right back to being tired and grumpy.
Please dispose of the empty can properly.
Edited on September 7, 2012 at 7:41amJun '10
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Peter - I was struck, particularly in the second half of the speech at how many times an anecdote about a wounded or fallen soldier or sailor or some reference about the military, was juxtaposed to a comment about some social program or some Marxist-inspired bromide. I thought this was a very emotionally manipulative thing to have done and it reminded me of his State of the Union speeches where he gets everyone the House chamber to stand and applaud some idea that everyone agrees with while quickly slipping in some Leftist zinger while all of Congress is still applauding. For me, it just solidifies my feeling about him that he's just a callous and deceptive person.
It was one the most hard Left speeches that I believe any POTUS has delivered. It was a doubling-down of all the hard Left positions he's articulated since he's been elected. There was no call to unity. No mea culpas. No sincere offer to work with Republicans - who will likely secure both houses of Congress in January...and as one who has acted extra-constitutionally on several occasions, that just spells trouble if he's re-elected.
May '10
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
1. President Obama warned us that Mitt Romney would allow factories to poison the air and he would ban student loans. And because of this, only President Obama was capable of killing Osama Bin Laden.
2. President Obama warned us that Mitt Romney would allow factories to poison the air and he would ban student loans. And because of this, only President Obama was capable of killing Osama Bin Laden.
(I have a big ego.)
May '10
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
1) Obama passionately reached out to the segment of the electorate that believes society's foundation is a mammoth central government for which The Rich should be ground into mortar.
2) I didn't last through the whole thing, because the sickening way Barack Obama demands worship for spending others' money was too much. The day after national debt cracks $16 trillion, and here's the same pompous liberal talking down to us about the impossible freebies evil Republicans want to stop him from doling out. GM is trending towards (another) bankruptcy, but we need to appreciate what he did to save those jobs.
Up is not down, and Progressive policies are neither mathematically nor morally sound - so I can't take much of Obama's blend of promised unicorns & transparent class warfare.
Chastened, he is not. As if there was any doubt left, there will be no pivot.
Jun '10
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
If it's any consolation...The Daily Beast was not impressed either.
Mar '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
1) The best thing you can say about Obama is that he was not afflicted by the Cronenbergian parasite that has eaten Jennifer Granholm's brain and taken control of her body.
2) Fairly dull speech. The only thing that could change poll numbers would be Clinton's speech and/or the hype surrounding it. But it would be a fragile bump; nobody elects a president based on someone else's convention speech. Unless that someone is Pat Buchanan. Who totally snubbed both conventions.
N.B. I've decided to write a novel called The Fragile Bump.
Apr '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Oh Peter! I confess myself disappointed. I thought YOU were going to watch it so I wouldn't have to. You're the main salient in my conservative echo chamber. <sigh> Now I'll have to find it on you tube and watch it myself. I was really expecting you'd take the bullet for us on this. ;)
Apr '11
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
Boffo finish.
Re: President Obama's Acceptance Speech: Well?
You, James, are a very wicked man.