The Speech

Any reaction? I understand there’s some blowback on the Right regarding Obama’s “citizen of the world” line. Yet Ronald Reagan used the same line once upon a time.

Ann Althouse
once again proves her inability to critically think her way out of a wet paper bag. She picked up on Obama’s comments about the Berlin Airlift:

I guess we’re not supposed to think about how Obama wanted and still wants to give up on the Iraq war. Surely, if he’d been there in 1948, he would have said the Berlin airlift is hopeless. He thought the surge was hopeless.

Yes, the “surge” is so much like the Berlin Airlift it’s hard to tell them apart. (/snark)

6 thoughts on “The Speech

  1. As soon as I heard the “citizen of the world” line, I knew the wingnuts would seize on it, predictably ignoring the “proud citizen of the United States” clause that directly preceded it. Time to play another round of black helicopters (yawn).

    I thought it was a fine speech. It would be something to have a president who wasn’t a national embarrassment again. I’ve forgotten what that was like.

  2. I was watching part of Obama’s speech on NPR’s News Hour last evening, and felt a strange pressure in my chest…. OMG, I thought, am I having heart attack? Why, no… no, I think this strange, vaguely familiar sensation is… can it be? OMG! I’m feeling national pride!

    To be fair, I did think the speech was too chock-full of Christmas toys for all the girls and boys. I don’t feel Obama should promise to right all the foreign-policy wrongs of the last 8 years in a single speech, and imo he tried to do that.

    The best part of the day, though, was seeing McLame in front of that “Fudge Haus” in Ohio. Jon Stewart probably thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

  3. My favorite part was McCain quietly deriding Obama for giving a speach on foreign soil before he’s elected… forgetting, as he does, that he did the same thing in Canada just over a month ago. And in the Canadian speach, he took a tangential shot at Obama over NAFTA.

    I don’t believe Obama said anything blatantly partison in Germany; he poked at some bad US policy, but not at his opponent, unless I missed something.

  4. I am trying to imagine George declaring himself a citizen of the world. I am quite positive that the ‘world’ would refuse him even a green card.

  5. It will be something to be among the people of the world and not be ashamed of our country anymore. I truly hope that day comes.

    I thought it was a good speech, but felt Obama’s delivery was a bit rushed, as though he over prepared, or had to be somewhere soon. Dramatic pauses add so much power to a speech, something he surely knows, and there were many opportunities to slow it down and let the words sink in, but he didn’t take them.

    Speaking of shame, San Francisco voters will decide in November whether to name a local sewage plant after George W Bush. Some think this is giving sewage a bad name, IOW the plant is about purifying sewage, IOW correcting a problem. And so I’m sympathetic, but I think they should instead name a wrecking yard or a demolition company after our worst president ever.

  6. I think what we are seeing in the press is no longer reporting and definitely not an attempt to be fair and balanced but instead an attempt for balance something else, the public’s perception which is what they should be reporting on.

    Obama couldn’t even have a good news day after his speech in German. The LATimes fixed that by an analysis article, usually relegated to the back page, titled :”Obstacles linger for Obama – the democrat is winning fans abroad but is struggling to gin real ground over McCain at home”.

    The real danger in this, according to author and professor of political science at Emory U., Drew Westen is that “The charge of bias against a charismatic contender can have a chilling effect on coverage, leading to an embargo on visual images that depict the reality of public response or an obligatory snarky comment or caveat following every story that describes something the candidate has done well.”.

    He adds that “The reality is that journalists are people, and people connect with Barack Obama in a way they don’t with John McCain. He draws crowds that dwarf McCain’s, and he excites enthusiasm both at home and abroad that McCain simply can’t excite. And that’s the news.”

    And now we hear a litany of whining from the McCain camp. Never mind the fact that McCain was the one who suggested the trip, apparently not considering the possibility that it would elevate Obama’s stature both on the world stage and at home.

    You couldn’t make this stuff up even if you were Stephen King.

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