The same one over and over again. Karl Rove, Sarah Palin and others have applauded the president’s rather muscular Nobel acceptance speech, but the same repeated Obama-isms stain the effort. Here’s a blurb from Victor Davis Hanson I was reminded of at Kyle Smith’s place.
1) Verbosity (4,000 words plus!) and extraneousness (he finally even referenced the world’s farmers); 2) I/me exhaustion (34 times) and the messianic cult of personality; 3) the 50/50, split-the-difference trope; 4) the straw man: on the one hand there are realists, on the other idealists, and I Obama singularly reject this either/or dichotomy (as if no one else does as well); 5) veiled attacks on the previous administration; 6) reference to his own unique personal story; 7) good-war/bad-war theory of Afghanistan and Iraq;
the hopey-changy rhetorical flourish.
Is there a Microsoft program somewhere that writes these things out?
Obama did not mention the word “Iraq” a single time, instead presenting his good-war/bad-war dichotomy thus: “One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”
And who’s to credit for the “war that shall be unnamed” being in the course of wind down?
If Obama had just a scant media presence these last 11 months, it would be one thing, but he has stuck to this template since his inaugural. Throw the teleprompter a bone, drop the “cult of personality” I/Me repetition and talk like a president.
Print
Digg
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Facebook
Yahoo! Buzz
Twitter
Google Bookmarks
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
MSN Reporter
MySpace
Orkut
Ping.fm
Reddit
RSS
Slashdot
Technorati
Tumblr
Webnews.de
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address doesn’t use the word “I” nor “me” once. And it was written by Lincoln and it is great.
I don’t know who writes Obama’s speeches, they sound like they were written by Obama, and they are tiresome, and none are great.
It boggles the mind that people find these Presidents comparable.
The people who see parallels between Obama and Lincoln are the same people who refuse to believe that Lincoln was some unique kind of Republican because was opposed slavery.
I think the subliminal message of all the president’s speeches is, “If you love me, that’s proof you’re extremely wise, good and tolerant.” Who wouldn’t be overwhelmed with that message?
“I am the answer you’ve been looking for.”
Did you see Steyn’s lampooning of the inevitable phony dichotomy lines in an Obama special?