Tag: potus

Song called on account of jaw-dropping Presidential statement.

I am officially gobsmacked. POTUS:

“Whether We Like it or Not, We Remain a Dominant Military Superpower.”

Here’s the video, in case the site above doesn’t load:

I got nothing, sorry.

[UPDATE]: No, wait, I do have something. Dude. READ THIS STUFF ALOUD FIRST BEFORE YOU GO IN FRONT OF A CAMERA. Find somebody on staff who doesn’t love you and read it in front of him or her. Watch to see where the winces are.

POTUS: Getting bored?

Again?

(H/T: @BillSTL) Nice to know that I’m not the only one who noticed this:

This is about the time Barack Obama becomes bored with his job.

He’s in his second year as president, and he’s discovered that even with all the powers of office, he can’t do everything he wants to do, like remake America. Doing stuff is hard. In the past, prosaic work has held little appeal for Obama, and it’s prompted him to think about moving on.

Quick timeline to illustrate his problem (and it is one, for him):

  • 1996: Elected Illinois state senator
  • 2000: Ran for US House of Representatives (defeated in primary)
  • 2002: Began running for US Senate
  • 2004: Elected US Senator
  • 2006: Began running for President
  • 2008: Elected President

Twelve years from state legislator to President may indeed be ‘meteoric;’ it is also ‘impatient,’ which is an assessment that the President himself might sign off on. More from York’s article:

At a Jan. 17 Martin Luther King Day event at Washington’s Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, Obama brought up the fact that many people see him as almost preternaturally calm. “I have a confession to make,” Obama said. “There are times I’m not so calm … when progress seems too slow … when it feels like all these efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have to confront my own doubts.”

Obama said it to be inspirational, but the fact is, in the past, that’s when he looked for a new job.

The good news is that the President’s interest in his job might rekindle if he’s given more of a challenge (if only for the novelty value). Having to face a Republican House and Senate next year would give him all the mental stimulation and focus that a person could want; and far be it from the GOP to deny the President what he truly, truly needs.

Because we’re givers that way.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

President snubs Norway for no discernable reason.

Ah, this glorious new world where we’re no longer casually offending other nations with our actions. From noted British right-wing rag The Guardian:

Barack Obama’s trip to Oslo to pick up his Nobel peace award is in danger of being overshadowed by a row over the cancellation of a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner.

Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit.

The White House has cancelled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children’s event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.

I personally didn’t want him to accept the thing in the first place, but if you’re going to take the Nobel Peace Prize, you go and you do the whole experience. Even if parts of it are boring. Even if parts of it are not fun.  Even if parts of it are impositions on your time.

I was about to suggest that the President apparently just wants to be a constitutional monarch, instead – except that the European royal families typically are better at enduring dull ceremonial with good grace than this guy is.  So I’ll just note that we’re stuck with a POTUS that seems to just not want to work for a living.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

No need for ‘victory?’

Erick Erickson over at RedState wasn’t the only one who noticed that the President’s speech last night contained no use of the word ‘victory:’ Andrew Malcolm over at the LA Times’ blog observed that, too.

President Obama spoke 4,582 words in his primetime Afghanistan war speech at West Point last night.

He said “al Qaeda” 22 times.

He mentioned the “Taliban” 12 times.

And here’s how many times the Democratic chief executive used the word “victory” — 0.

That telling omission says more than anything about Obama’s 322d day in office when he gave his first major address as the United States’ commander-in-chief.

Mind you, I’m not particularly surprised. The ostensible audience for this speech – the cadets – already know more about victory than the President (or for that matter, me) could hope to tell them; and the actual audience (the progressive antiwar Democratic base) reacts to that particular word in much the same way that a traditional vampire reacts to a cross.  Apparently, that means that mentioning ‘victory’ would be superfluous in the first place, and contraindicated in the second.  At least to this administration.

All that being said: Saying “We have been at war for eight years, at enormous cost in lives and resources,” in front of a room full of people who have been taught about Shiloh and Okinawa?  There’s a Presidential speechwriter out there who could use firing.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Yet another slightly panicky call for POTUS to bring his A-game.

I love reading articles like this (and for this one, all you need is the title):

It’s time for Obama to take off the kid gloves

Not that my love of articles like this reflects anything except a stain on my character, given that I enjoy them as the political equivalent of drunken hobo fight videos*.  I may not have learned much in the last six years, but once thing that I have taken away from my observations is that people who are losing political battles tend to fight as hard as they know how.  Which is not the same as ‘as hard as one would like,’ or ‘as hard as they can.’  So, when somebody has a problem with energy and/or skill levels of a particular candidate, at some point the possibility should be addressed that the actual problem lies in the actual candidate, and not in his or her methods or strategy.  Which is what I think the case is here.

Put another way: the President can’t take off the kid gloves.  They’re already off.

Moe Lane

*Admittedly, I’ve never actually watched a drunken hobo fight video, but I can extrapolate from the commercials.

Crossposted to RedState.

VPOTUS mocks POTUS for overuse of TOTUS.

As part of the speech to the Air Force Academy:

Then, not content to leave without a jaunty ad lib, Biden noted that heavy winds were gusting through the ceremonies. One of his two teleprompters had toppled over. Alluding to the jokes of Obama’s reliance on the speech-facilitators, Biden added, “What I am going to tell the president when I tell him his teleprompter is broken. What will he do then.”

Stammer, hem, and haw, of course. The President isn’t actually all that great an orator – well, more accurately, while he can give a pretty speech he’s not all that great at giving memorable ones. It’s that cool detachment thing that he’s so lauded for; POTUS is rarely particularly engaged in what he’s saying, which means that his listeners have to supply the emotional resonance themselves. That’s one major reason why people rarely remember actual lines from his speeches.

I could be very harsh at this point, but I’ll be nice and just say that this level of not-caring also means that it’s harder to ad-lib when things go wrong.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.