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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2009-02-25

Color Me Unimpressed 

So the President--the "Greatest Orator in a Generation"--gave his first Congressional address tonight.

Ho-hum.

Seriously, I watched the speech, and I listened for stunning imagery and stirring rhetoric, and was unimpressed. It was rather . . . pedestrian.

Well, except for that line he stole from Morgan Freeman in "Deep Impact."

As with most of his recent speeches, the President stuck to what got him here to begin with: deep on ambiguous principle, very VERY shallow on specifics.

Take for instance the section on education. Please.

The one real specific that he mentioned about education was to ask every American to commit to one year of higher education or vocation training.

Because, really, we all just kinda stumble out of high school, jump, and see which job we land on for the next 50 years.

Of what value at all is that high-minded bit of rhetoric? Who gets to decide what counts for this? When a person apprentices with an electrician for a year, does that count? Do the skills the men and women of the U.S. Military pick up count as "career training?" And is there going to be a timetable for completion of this year, and will there be consequences for those who fail to complete it in time?

It is rhetorical Chinese food: pretty good going down, but leaves you hungry.

And actually not all that great going down.

By the way, "Nobody messes with Joe." Really? You mean, other than Joe himself when he tries to speak extemporaneously?

The big issue, we've already learned I think, is that the President sets out these broad, middling sort of ideas about what he wants, and then turns the sculpting of legislation over to the Pelosi's and the Reid's and the Schumer's, so we get Bills and Laws that reflect very narrow, partisan principles which will march this country directly and irrevocably towards socialism.
Posted by: Michael / 2/25/2009 01:47:00 AM

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