Rhetoric and Speechification over Subtance
Posted: September 8, 2011 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign | Tags: Obama jobs speech, prebuttal 19 CommentsI’m getting ready to do the live blog tonight for the Obama jobs speech. It seems the press is finally doing due diligence on the President. For some reason, media due diligence is only done after it’s way too late. Right now, the press seems obsessed with following John Huntsman who has about a 1% following and just about that much of a chance of making it through a Republican primary. But, now that we’re up against some of the craziest Republicans that could ever possibly come up the drain pipe, we’ve got the press suddenly saying speeches aren’t enough while the President still thinks all he has to do is give one and problems magically clear up. Here’s a really good pre-speech analysis that should’ve been written around 2008. Bottom line: Actions speak louder than words.
Barack Obama has been here before — politically endangered, doubts mounting about his leadership, and a growing sense that, for all his promise, he has lost his way.
As he has done before — whether to salvage a candidacy or revive a policy — Obama will resort to a device that has been successful for him in the past: the Big Speech.
With most of the country saying he has mismanaged the economy, President Obama will use an address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday to outline his plan to create jobs and head off a second recession. It will be the fifth time Obama has spoken to a joint session, the howitzer of the presidential communications arsenal.
But the risks this time are as high as the potential for any reward.
Obama faces some particular challenges on this outing, ones magnified by the summer’s debt-ceiling debate, when he spoke frequently to the American public but with little effect on the outcome.
Americans have been hearing a lot from him. For months, he has discussed some of the same jobs proposals he will detail in the speech, mentioning them as recently as this week at a Labor Day rally in Detroit.
With the unemployment rate locked in above 9 percent, voters are weary of words. Another high-profile speech is likely to underscore how little has changed since Obama said in his first joint-session address, a month after taking office, “Now is the time to jump-start job creation.”
Yes, all you have to do is say it and it comes true. Now, I have to admit that President Obama doesn’t have the same problems that most of the Republicans do. They are on the wrong side of history since just about every thing they are pushing these days got settled by and around the civil war which most of them appear to be ready to fight all over again. They also have so many factual errors that you wonder why some of the journalists in those debates don’t mention it. Perry and Bachmann are stand outs on that front. Perry has no idea what a Ponzi scheme is and Michelle Bachmann should look like Pinocchio by now. Both of them appear to be blissfully unaware that the federal government has the ability to tax people and businesses and print money. This makes so many of their economic points so moot that it’s not even funny. However, I think they want to repeal all the amendments save the second, so maybe in that context it all makes sense.
However, it’s hard to put meaningless rhetoric vs misstatement of fact kind of rhetoric on any kind of scale and trying to find a balance. They both are forms of lies. One basically is saying things that never happened and the other is talking about things that will never happen. I stuck Hillary’s famous campaign speech on celestial choirs up top for reference. It’s a germane today as it was the day it was given.
All I can say is there are lies and there are damned lies. If you don’t say what you mean and do what you say, you might as well be making facts up along the way too. The only difference that I can see is which verb tense you use.
Join us tonight for the live blog tonight when I try to look at the speech through my economist’s spectacles. Right now, I’m just a super depressed American voter looking for a reasonable alternative before I have to vote none of the above and lose along with the rest of the country.
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dak: You are leaving out the best part: Ron Paul’s objection to regulations even, those surrounding airline traffic control! Not the government’s business says he.
Just leave that to individual airlines to decide because it is good for the marketplace.
Anyone interested in making their decision to ride on a particular airline because it has the LEAST NUMBER OF AIRCRAFT FALLING OUT OF THE SKY?????
Are these people for real? The stupidity has found purchase amongst this gang of Know Nothings.
But wait, another round of insanity is set for Monday the 12th when the usual suspects meet up again on CNN for another round of “debates”.
Looking for an evening when you can place your brainpan in the microwave? This is it.
I admit to not watching at all last night. I’m working on getting my CV up on the Financial Management Association list, getting some papers out for publishing, and working on a presentation I have to do on mortgage default strategies in October. I’m hoping to high tail it some where where I can set up a processing center for American Expats leaving the Hand Maiden’s tale world that will be the US in a few short years. I’m really looking into checking out of the insane asylum. I have had it with my future being gambled away by idiots.
The remaining question is where to go to get away. Lunacy seems to be taking over just about everywhere except in the South Pacific these days.
my research is on the economies in SE Asia. Frankly, I’d go to Singapore at this point.
I would love to get the hell out but I’m too old for immigration to Australia or New Zealand. The biggest mistake I ever made was coming back here from Oz. Those would be my preferences but I’m becoming more open all the time.
There’s a lot of listings for academics for New Zealand. They’re definitely on my list.
If you get the chance, GO! New Zealand is a wonderful country and the kiwis are as nice and friendly as any people on earth. I envy you the opportunity.
As unreal as the liberartian/wingnut faction is, It all goes back to Kat’s point about rhetoric over substance and both Obama and the Repubs being guilty of it.
I still think this passage from a debate not so long ago tells you just about everything you need to know about the reason why Obama and the Repubs (redundant to really separate O from the Rs imho) are unacceptable…
Hillary: “Well, I would, with all due respect, say that the United States government is much more than a business. It is a trust. It is the most complicated organization. But it is not out to make a profit. It is out to help the American people. It is about to stand up for our values and to do what we should at home and around the world to keep faith with who we are as a country. And with all due respect, we have a president who basically ran as the CEO, MBA president, and look what we got. I am not too happy about the results.”
Obama: “Let me — let me just also point out that, you know, Mitt Romney hasn’t gotten a very good return on his investment during this presidential campaign And so, I’m happy to take a look at my management style during the course of this last year and his. I think they compare fairly well.”
Neither the ostensibly Democratic Obama nor the Republicans understand what the United States government is.
Speaking ot Ron Paul…
JohnWSmart’s videos are one of the few worthwhile things on the net now.
Thanks for this post, Kat – timely indeed – I had lunch with a former high school teacher of mine today – she ended her academic career nicely when she retired from her college president’s position.
At one point during the meal she looked at me and said, “where did they get that group of stupid yahoos that were part of what they called a debate last night?”
Now this gal is in her mid 80’s and she continued on a tirade about how dumb the “leaders” are and finally ended it with how badly we needed and still need Hillary.
Needless to say I was a bit surprised because I thought she was a diehard Republican. 🙂
I’ll try to look at Obama’s performance through my psychologist’s spectacles, but I’m not sure I’ll ever understand what makes this man tick. At this point, I’m really wondering if he has a fear of success.
If he doesn’t offer anything new tonight, he’s toast. And it doesn’t sound like there will be anything other than the warmed over Republican proposals that he’s been talking about for months.
Obama should throw caution to the wind and lay down a big plan to get the economy going. The republicans aren’t going to do anything helpful so why not demand a trillion dollar stimulus, with no tax cuts. It you need to propose a WPA style approach, then do it.
He can do a lot via executive orders through the various cabinet depts and their budgets. He should just go for it and maybe people would support it.
If you are going to lose anyway, it’s better to go out as a lion than as a lamb.
Hear, hear, ralphb! Makes more sense then him sitting around with his thumb up his rump bewailing the GOP.
Nothing new there: their entire plan has been nothing more than defeat him at any cost. And that cost include us. So go big, or go home. Why not? As you said, at this point he has nothing to lose.
Absolutely, Ralph – the Republican’s only goal is to defeat O – not to help us, not to create jobs, not to fix anything – just get the WH.
It would blow their minds if he came up with a bold plan that could actually do something to help.
I agree, Ralph.
Well, I think he’s a megalomaniac, a la Ahab. Seriously. He is obsessed with being the grand uniter, the savior of humanity, the greatest person ever to walk the face of the earth. He believes it with every fiber of his being. He doesn’t really have any other beliefs, just the belief in his greatness. That is why there is no course correction. It’s just full speed ahead, because he knows he’s the greatest ever. It makes no difference what anyone else thinks. Period. He knows more than all of us combined. That’s why he’s always lecturing us like we’re second-graders.
I know it’s ridiculous. He has proved to be utterly incompetent at preventing the Greatest Depression Ever and a complete and utter liar. I don’t think he fears success. In his mind, his success was ordained at birth. His just being, nothing more, is a success greater than anything any of us could even dream about. As for the polls, well, he is greater than all the people polled combined. HE IS THE GREATEST HUMAN BEING EVER. So the polls are irrelevant.
Now, he has become so heavy-handed in implementing his agenda (which is far more brilliant than anything any of us could ever produce) even the blogger boyz and the media are having trouble hiding from the truth. Cat Commission I was terrible; Cat Commission II is a disaster. An obvious disaster. Blatant, really. Along with the flipping the bird to the environmentalists. And tonight’s BS will be more of the same, because Obama is always right. Obama knows best. Whatever Obama does, by definition, is the best.
The masses are now seeing what we’ve seen all along: the emperor has no clothes. Yet he continues to strut around, in his megalomania, as if he were wearing the richest garments ever. This is one sick sick dude.
He is a sick dude. He’s also very likely to have his head handed to him in Nov ’12 by another psychopath from the other party.
Avedon at Eschaton may have the answer to Obama’s issue.