MICKEY KAUS ON OBAMA’S SPEECH:
More effective than expected. Would have been even more effective if he’d stopped about halfway through.
a) His speaking style has deteriorated since taking office. He’s phonier than in 2008, reading with forced emphasis. At times he achieved the rare, magical combination of seeming desperate and condescending at the same time.
b) The ”people who sent us here – the people who hired us to work for them – they don’t have the luxury of waiting fourteen months.” Why not just “we” don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months? Why assume the disconnect–e.g. that he and the others in the room aren’t “living week to week; paycheck to paycheck; even day to day”? It puts distance (condescending distance!) between Obama and the TV audience. It’s not even true. I would venture to say that most of the people in this room, and Obama himself, know someone who is living “week to to week, paycheck to paycheck.” Some of them know me, for instance.
c) “[C]ompanies will get a $4,000 tax credit if they hire anyone who has spent more than six months looking for a job.” The problem with such tax credits, of course, is that they act as a red flag telling employers that a job applicant isn’t exactly top of the barrel.
Kinda like this Administration. Call it the CETA Presidency.
Related: AP Factcheck: Yeah, Obama Said His Plan Will Be Paid For, But It Really Won’t. “Nobody but nobody is buying the president’s speech. The AP just ran it through a shredder.”
More: Obama: Pass It Now, Pay For It Later. “His great idea: Cobble together a mish-mash of old ideas (infrastructure spending, a payroll tax cut) and pay for it later, by asking the debt commission to come up with additional deficit reductions later, preferably by hiking taxes on the rich. The second half of the speech was a heated campaign rally aimed at a cartoon version of his future opponent. . . . What was remarkable was the whiff of desperation conveyed by Obama, and the utter lack of interest by the Republicans. The speaker of the House looked bored. The Republicans neither booed nor applauded. No one thinks this grab bag, a mini son of the Stimulus Plan, is going to work. But Republicans must be relieved: Obama said nothing that would either win over independents or exert any pressure on them to pass it.”
Plus, from Ira Stoll: “President Obama has gotten to the point with me that by merely giving a speech in favor of something, he can turn me against policies that I believe in and support.” Maybe that was his secret plan all along! . . .