Adages & Ovations

This man (link) needs to find another calling.

It makes sense that if you’re going to say something, say it in the most effective manner possible, but please—PLEASE—stop opening every speech with a spew of rhetoric. I get the sense that either President Obama or his speechwriter imagine listening to these speeches thirty years down the road, and man, they want them to sound eloquent. The problem, at least in the beginning of the speech, was that nothing was being said. President Obama understands the fear that keeps us up late at night. He understands we’re scared. But things will get better! (Standing ovation)

Things started to heat up towards the middle—President Obama explained that:

1. He’s going to fix the economy
2. He’s going to get affordable healthcare for every American, and what’s more
3. It’s time to cure cancer.
4. Education needs to available to every child, birth to beginning of career.

Does anyone disagree with any of these goals? I very much doubt it, but there was very little concrete presentation; just an unending flow of optimism, laced with a moment of slightly unsettling rhetoric—did anyone else pause when the President declared that if you choose to not pursue higher education, you’re “not quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on America!” Not going to college just progressed from a personal choice to an un-American activity. Sort of reminds me of something… (link)

I will say that I thought it was encouraging to hear there was a line-by-line budget cut in progress, and that Pres. Obama’s committee had already cut enough to save 2.2 trillon over the next decade. Before he gave that information, however, he put in a brief note about the auto bailout that I think was somewhat of a paradox, claiming that “we should not protect them (auto industry) from their bad choices.”
But we did! Why? Because “…the nation that invented the auto industry can’t walk away from it.” Is this really a reason for billions of dollars to be spent? What could that money have done for creating alternative forms of transportation?

Anyway. I thought there were some strong moments in the speech. I’m not sure what “Cold War defense systems” Obama was talking about dismantling (stock piles of A-bombs, H-bombs, and Star Wars type stuff I’m guessing...anyone know?), but it seems reasonable that that stuff has long been useless. Abu Ghraib was undeniably an embarrassment, and our intelligence community has a long, painful history of power abuse (in every sense of the word). Reform is necessary there.

Ups, downs...sifting for actual information shouldn't be as difficult as these speeches are making it…