This blogger caught most of Obama's remarks and all of Jindal's tonight. I have some thoughts, but would welcome reader feedback on all aspects of the performance of both gentlemen in the comments.
Posted by Eric Earling at February 24, 2009 10:30 PM | Email ThisJindal: The text was excellent, but the delivery was lacking. One commentator noticed the "singsong" tone, and I agree. He does far better in an interview or when questioned by a reporter (because his tone is normal). But this is fine: he can readily improve his delivery of prepared speeches. Fortunately, he seems to have a knack for impromptu speaking, which is far more difficult to master. The ability to think on the fly and deliver a solid response is important. I wonder how he does in debates?
Posted by: Tim B. on February 24, 2009 10:43 PMConservative Oasis @ http://conservativeoasis.com
We've been quoted by Malkin, Atlas Shrugs (Pamela Geller's blog), Huffington Post (ick!)...
On the other hand, I also found most of Obama's speech to be a lot like a campaign speech- goals, not plans. Little substance, plenty of "feel good".
I found it amazing he finally found the heart or wisdom to ditch the word "crisis" after having abused the hell out of it prior to passing the stimulus, but I think we all know why that is/was. Politics...
Currently on the Oasis, for Washingtonian's, is the DSHS spending well over $250million on a campaign to broaden federal aid to balloon for Washington.
I think, in the end, we will find that this work was done to pump up DSHS books more than it was done to "help people".
Check out http://conservativeoasis.com, and our YouTube videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/ConservativeOasis
Thanks- and let me know how I can help you all at Sound Politics if I can...
Posted by: COasis on February 24, 2009 10:47 PMMeanwhile, Obama's deficit swelling stimulus plan, that hundreds of economists don't believe will do any stimulating, is to be financed by an even more swindling climate cap and trade scam. And since the science is not there at all on Global Warming, such draconian measures will likely have a deep impact on businesses and energy producers subject to its whims.
This cap and trade fiasco combined with the Porkulus bill and the housing bailout is all starting to add up to over $2,000,000,000,000 hit to the nation. And we thought Bush was bad.
I sure hope this guy is not the future of the GOP!
Posted by: Lysander on February 25, 2009 06:07 AMIf you were wondering what the bobbleheads at MSNBC were thinking prior to Jinda's speeech, apparently one of them found God at the exact moment he appeared. You gotta appreciate professional news journalism these days.
Posted by: Rick D. on February 25, 2009 06:19 AMBobby Jindal is new on the political scene. So, being a Republican and not supporting obama's spendulus plan, I expect every obama groupie (dead head college students included) to automatically dislike him.
Posted by: Spartan on February 25, 2009 06:46 AMThe speech was excellent and Obama puts himself up there with the greatest orators of all times. Orson Welles comes to mind as a great "voice".
As for content, I couldn't take it when they all got up to cheer about the great Spending they were doing and then 15 minutes they were up and cheering how great their cuts of government waste was. I go, huh?
Posted by: swatter on February 25, 2009 07:18 AMMy hackles went up a couple of times. His CEO-bashing and his backhanded Bush-bashing were just sleazy partisan Chicago politics, red meat for his leftie base, but lousy for uniting a country. And he used the phrase "I will not allow" way too many times, like a Stalin on the make.
His assertion that the 'stimulus' had no earmarks was straight out of the Ministry of Truth. It taxes us all to fatten his favored constituencies.
Guard your remaining valuables.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on February 25, 2009 07:23 AMAnd don't forget Universal Health Care, Cap and Trade, and that government will buy every American a house. Oops, not every American, just those who least deserve it.
With a flip of a switch Obama moved back to hope after weeks of crisis and catastrophe. No doubt catastrophe and crisis will be back soon as he pushes CO2 regs and perhaps the largest tax grab in history by charging industry for producing CO2.
This president is shameless, but made so only by a totally gullible base of supporters that have been so completely dumbed down by the left that they've completely abandoned reality and bought into his impossible promises.
Posted by: Reality on February 25, 2009 07:38 AMThe simple fact is that neither party - nor your vaunted Ron Paul - will be able to pare back Government to a reasonable size. If you want to tilt at windmills, go ahead and waste your time.
What we CAN do - that will have a massive return over 5 to 6 years - is to hold Federal spending to inflation plus population growth only.
If we held Federal spending increases to that formula only, we'd grow ourselves out of a deficit in no more than 6 years. The GDP (and hence, the receipts to the US Federal Government, which historically are between 18% and 22% of the GDP) grows faster than inflation plus population growth.
To solve this fiasco, we should be realistic. STOP increasing the rate of spending. Hold it to a reasonable number. And then we'll grow ourselves out of the deficit. No need to bicker about programs to be cut, or Federal jobs to lose. Just stop spending faster than is required.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Federal Government should be 25% the size it is, but I am also a realist and understand it will never happen. So the solution is to be rational and just limit Federal Government's growth to be less than the GDP's growth. The problem will take care of itself in less time than the Slavery Party will be spending this Porkulus bill (at a rate 14 times that of President Bush's deficit spending).
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on February 25, 2009 08:04 AMBut as Tim B. also pointed out, the key concern going forward is the likelihood that the bad policies that take us galloping down the dead-end socialist road will be acted on and pursued to the bitter end no matter what the result; while the rational points that were made will more-or-less quickly fall by the wayside. And Walters is right on @ #4, in reminding us of the disastrous example provided by Argentina; even best case they will be a very long time recovering. We can't afford to duplicate that experience.
I especially agree with Jeff B. @ #3 on the ''cap and trade'' scam; which has been aptly described by State Rep. Joel Kretz as a ''cap and tax'' policy that is ''basically wealth distribution wrapped in 'green' policies''. The emphasis Obama put on this economically destructive and counter-productive policy is a major worry.
WRT the (R) response by Jindal:
Maybe the tone and delivery could have been a little better, but overall the substance and his command of the facts was as usual excellent. To listen to several of the MSM talking heads you would think the delivery was a total disaster; I didn't think it was that bad (of course I tend to focus on substance).
Anyway: The nit picking by some in the MSM about Jindal's delivery is a one-day story. As Duffman noted his future viability will for the most part be measured by how successful he is in resurrecting LA. If he pulls it off (a huge task) the ''delivery'' on this one speech will be a meaningless footnote; If not, giving the best speech ever made won't save him. If anybody can pull LA out of the dive, Jindal's the guy.
Back to ''cap, tax, and extort'' for a second:
This is going to be a long struggle. Staving off the worst excesses of this eco-activist big-government scam will require citizens to continue to push politicians at both the state and federal levels to objectively consider the weight (or lack thereof) of the total body of scientific evidence; and not just be robot kool-aide drinkers of Al Gore's ''the debate is over''. Jeff B. provided pointers to a couple of the best websites in a prior post a while back. Given the emphasis in Obama's speech on ''cap and trade'' it's worth repeating those links; and adding a couple more:
IceCap.US
Watts Up With That
International Climate Science Coalition
Heartland Institute - GW Facts
No website can cover everything in a complex subject area, but if you follow the above on a regular basis you probably won't miss much of substance in the ongoing AGW debate; which will not be ''over'' for a LONG time.
Posted by: Methow Ken on February 25, 2009 08:10 AMO - Office
S - (of) Secretary (of)
C - Commerce
A - (and) America's
R - Recovery
:)
Posted by: Duffman on February 25, 2009 09:03 AMWish I could take credit for that but it's not mine. But it applies perfectly.
Obama is a Cipher - the real policy making is being done by Rahm 'never waste a crisis' Emmanuel.
Posted by: Kato on February 25, 2009 09:17 AMThe Republicans in 2012 will need to rally behind a galvanizing figure in order to beat an Obama. Jindal just won't be able to stimulate much of anything. If the suburban arm of the Republican party thinks they are going to start propping up a Jindal or a Romney right now, they are only going to manage to further tear themselves apart from a good portion of the conservative base and when the time comes to rally behind someone the party could be fractured once again.
Posted by: Doug on February 25, 2009 10:12 AMI think you're getting ahead of yourself worrying about 2012. The 2008 cycle proved how worthless such early prognostication can be. The important thing right now is to develop GOP leaders, thus creating a stable of folks that are moving the ball forward for the conservative movement and potentially readying themselves for future runs for office. That includes Jindal, Romney, Palin, Pawlenty, Sanford, Cantor, etc., etc. Not all of them will become Presidential timber and/or a good fit for 2012. The important thing is to let them develop and see who blossoms.
I don't see the evidence that any arm of the party is starting to prop up a candidate as you describe it. Thus, such complaints that anyone is doing so really seems counterproductive.
Posted by: Eric Earling on February 25, 2009 10:31 AMTHE FACTS: Depends what your definition of automobiles, is. According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was probably Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886. In the U.S., Charles Duryea tested what library researchers called the first successful gas-powered car in 1893. Nobody disputes that Henry Ford created the first assembly line that made cars affordable.
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OBAMA: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before."
THE FACTS: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining slightly since. The figure in 2007 was 4.9 billion barrels, or about 58 percent of total consumption. The nation is on pace this year to import 4.7 billion barrels, and government projections are for imports to hold steady or decrease a bit over the next two decades.
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OBAMA: "We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade."
THE FACTS: Although 10-year projections are common in government, they don't mean much. And at times, they are a way for a president to pass on the most painful steps to his successor, by putting off big tax increases or spending cuts until someone else is in the White House.
Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won't be 10 years from now.
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OBAMA: "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day."
THE FACTS: This may be so, but it isn't only Republicans who pushed for deregulation of the financial industries. The Clinton administration championed an easing of banking regulations, including legislation that ended the barrier between regular banks and Wall Street banks. That led to a deregulation that kept regular banks under tight federal regulation but extended lax regulation of Wall Street banks. Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, later an economic adviser to candidate Obama, was in the forefront in pushing for this deregulation.
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OBAMA: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."
THE FACTS: First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do, because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama's proposals here are a wish list and some items, including corporate tax increases and cuts in agricultural aid, will be a tough sale in Congress.
Second, waste, fraud and abuse are routinely targeted by presidents who later find that the savings realized seldom amount to significant sums. Programs that a president might consider wasteful have staunch defenders in Congress who have fought off similar efforts in the past.
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OBAMA: "Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years."
THE FACTS: While the president's stimulus package includes billions in aid for renewable energy and conservation, his goal is unlikely to be achieved through the recovery plan alone.
In 2007, the U.S. produced 8.4 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, including hydroelectric dams, solar panels and windmills. Under the status quo, the Energy Department says, it will take more than two decades to boost that figure to 12.5 percent.
If Obama is to achieve his much more ambitious goal, Congress would need to mandate it. That is the thrust of an energy bill that is expected to be introduced in coming weeks.
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OBAMA: "Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs."
THE FACTS: This is a recurrent Obama formulation. But job creation projections are uncertain even in stable times, and some of the economists relied on by Obama in making his forecast acknowledge a great deal of uncertainty in their numbers.
Posted by: Just The Facts on February 25, 2009 10:43 AMIf you want to sound like a sweet son of an Appalachian pig farmer from a hit NBC comedy show be my guest. Just don't expect people to take you very seriously when you talk down to the American people like they're kindergartners.
The clear early choice would be Mark Stanford, even if he lost Iowa he'd still be a lock in states like SC (where he's a household name) and FL therefore securing large numbers in the Winner-Take-All delegates and leaving everyone else in the dust.
Of course that can all change, who would have thought the GOP would choose a moderate like John McCain to lead the party over true conservatives like Huckabee and Romney.
You must be as desperate as the Republican Party is to score cheap points.
Cato the liar has zero credibility after demonstrably LYING.
Posted by: pbj on February 25, 2009 11:46 AMYou should tell that to Caribou Barbie who you are so eager to defend.
What credibility do you have PBJ besides being a racist troll?
