President Obama's Speech

RE: Re: RE: President Obama

Sorry Mo.

 

RE: Re: RE: President Obama

...and there's plenty of knuckleheads to go around in these parts, Steve, plenty of 'em (and no offense taken by your post, just semi-defending the homeland of the FUSA left coasters[speaking of which, Meggrs, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?])

Mo, I apologize too, but it's sick fun.

 

okay back on topic and then I will lower myself into the gutter with the rest of you. Again, I thought Obama did a very good job with the speech. Granted it is easier to give a good speech when you are relatively vague and general but I dont think inauguration speeches should get too detailed anyway. There was a part, though, that I didnt like; when he said,
"we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals". I dont know where it is written, but I always thought that the president's #1 responsibility was the safety of the American people. That is why every president who has ever been in office during a time of war has chosen safety over our supposed ideals. We had to amend the constitution for stuff Roosevelt did for godsakes. Does no one remember the complaints after 911? As if stopping the terrorists from crashing an airplane full of civilians was as easy as tracking Paine Stewarts doomed jet.

As far as the booing, those bozos obviously weren't listening to what Obama was saying (as in "the time has come to set aside childish things"). They are examples of why Obama is likely to fall woefully short of what he hopes to accomplish.

Now since the rest of you only wanted to talk about what you found annoying about the inauguration, I'll put in my two cents. I totally agree with Petty about the words of the reverend. Ironic that at the inaguration of our first black president, the reverand (of all people) makes remarks that have to be the most racist of anything ever said at an inauguration. Someone should research that.

Also, I watched some of the parade coverage and failed to see the need to have the Gay and Lesbian Marching Band prance by for the newly inaugurated President of the United States. Of all the marching bands across the entire country that could have performed, I'm disappointed that this band took one of the slots. To have a band which is meant to advertise it's sexuality march alongside university bands, award winning high school bands, military academies, inner city bands, and NASA astronauts is a bit of a joke. It would be one thing if gay and lesbians were prohibited from the other bands but we all know that's not the case dont we. They probably all had some gays. It's just another example of our society not seeing the line between not judging people and glorifying a way of like that is, on average, not healthy (life expectancy and health care costs as bad or worse than those of smokers).


Finally, the pundits were annoying but what else is new. They told everyone Obama's speech was an indictment of Bush even though it wasnt, other than the one line that I mentioned above (i.e. safety v ideals) and that is just plain wrong in terms of our country's history. However, they cant denigrate Obama so I guess they need to keep denigrating Bush - even though he's gone.

 

Pretty much got what I expected out of the whole thing. Obama's speech displayed his oratorical talent. Content was predictable. Thought the booing and nana song were classless, but as has been beaten to death previously, both sides have their bad eggs. Also found the pundits to be predictably fawning, but given what I was expecting, didn't think they were too bad. It's a new president, I have no problem celebrating that and not being critical for a day.

As with anything these days, it was overcovered and overanalyzed near to death and I checked out on the proceedings shortly after the speech. Flipping channels, I found the Obamas still dancing after midnight (ET) and the talking heads, well, still talking. Could have done w/o Matthews' constant Romanov comparison re: Bush, but the guy's a tool who likes to hear himself talk and seems to pride himself on how "clever" he thinks he can be, so it's to be expected.

 

That was actually my favorite line of the entire speech. I took it to mean "you don't have to go completely overboard and create institutions such as Homeland Security and the Patriot Act, which both categorically compromise our ideals, in order to be or feel safe."

 

Personally, I have no problem with that line and it was well stated. It's just that too many people believe Bush is the only president to ever compromize our ideals during war, not to mention that this war has a very different type of enemy. It's easy to say on inauguration day; it's an entirely different thing when your counting your dead, and it was your job to prevent the deaths. My point is Obama may change his mind if we are attacked and Americans start complaining.

 

The speech was just okay. Won't go down as particularly famous or good. He's playing down the expectations on him. I also hope the complete f up of people getting to see the speech isn't a sign of things to come from Obama. Cause if they can't get the inauguration right, god help them when they try to help out after the next Katrina.

I just hope there's some substance to him. He'll be able to say all the right things and at the right time, and act like a leader (I loved him tapping Biden on the back after Biden made of fun of Justice Roberts), but he has to come through on his policies and what he says. So far nothing.

Even the Gitmo stuff is nothing.

I mean I'm glad we have a wonderfully smart, and articulate President now, but he's got to be the 'decider' just like Bush was and actually back up what he says. So far he's all nice talk.

 

The problem with changing his mind on this, like after we are attacked again, is that it will be too late to act. Obama and the Democrats problem will be figuring out how to keep all the things Bush built that 'compromised our liberties', but that work. America didn't suffer another attack because of some of the so-called compromises to liberty the Bush administration put into place.

If Obama loosens what Bush did up, and another attack happens... he will not be President again.

It's one thing to talk high and mighty about our abstract liberties but a whole other thing to be stupid and allow terrorists to incubate in our society and attack us whenever they want to.

... so Obama is going to have to compromise our liberties just as Bush has done... which I don't think has been a whole lot to begin with especially in light of what past administrations have done.

 

Don, I don't think Lyle wrote he thought President Obama is a disappointment. I didn't read that in his post.

 

Don,

I voted for Obama and I support him... but if you read the Guardian and some other left-of-center paper/blogs, they're acting like Obama has accomplihsed something with his executive orders (okay, some bloggers are smart enough to know he hasn't but... people are already acting as if everything has changed when it hasn't).

The truth is Don, we don't actually know what Bush did to stop further attacks. We don't know what worked and we don't really know what hasn't. What we do know is that no attack has happened since 9/11... not one. Not even after the Iraq War (that supposedly has radicalized so many Muslims) have we been attacked. So something Bush did worked.

Obama isn't stupid and won't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. So I can guarantee you that he will keep a lot of Bush's stuff in place. He'll call it something different perhaps or say he's done away with it, when he hasn't... but a lot of the security stuff Bush started won't be going anywhere, especially since we're still at War and will be for the rest of Obama's administration.