Tuesday, February 10, 2009

First Try at the Bully Pulpit?

Last night, President Obama held his first primetime press conference for a full hour of valuable all network coverage. American Idol it was not; but for those of us interested in serious political discourse and open questions it did provide a first glimpse at the new President’s style and rhetoric, now that the governing is beginning.

Sadly, President Obama repeatedly built false Republican straw men to tear down, and was intellectually dishonest in his description of Republicans as supporting “no government response” to the current economic crisis, or “tax cuts alone.” Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics provides a complete analysis.

Here’s hoping the new man with the bully pulpit doesn’t turn out to be slick-suited bully…

Submitted by ASO member: Jeter

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeter -
Looking at Obama's body language he was clearly uncomfortable with this topic matter. He does best from a Teleprompter where he is fed and rehearsed.
I found his responses to be choppy and not in the eloquent manner that he has delivered in recent past interactions.
At the end of the day is this suggesting the he has no clue what he is doing? He and Geithner certainly disclaimed every comment today...

Will the real adults please stand up!!!

Jeter said...

Anon:

Thanks for the comment (my first as an ASO author)!

I really want to give my new President the benefit of the doubt, and I appreciate that he went "off prompter" and took actual questions.

But, we need to hold the President to the level he is attempting to hold "Washington", and if he wants to put away "childish things" he can't use childish arguments to demonize the other party.

If you really want to raise the level of dialogue, let's do it!

egb said...

Frankly, I was impressed with his description of the banking problem and why it happened. I though he would launch into Bush bashing but his description was pretty good. He seems to be absorbing this stuff. However, he still has not recognized the basic dispute between supply side economics and bottom up spending. He seems to beleive that Keynesian economics has won the theory war. I am unaware of such a victory.

Ed

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