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"To choose our better history" | 19 comments (19 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
A good contextualisation of the speech... (4.00 / 1)
RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Eloquence is in the Moment
Even in a speech without great applause lines there were plentiful indications of the new presidential style. He identified four areas of conflict -- big government versus small, taming the markets versus freeing them, preserving American safety versus saving our freedoms, fighting global warming versus altering our way of life -- and to each of them he implicitly suggested that the politics of the age had created false choices.


notes from no w here
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Wed Jan 21st, 2009 at 11:17:47 AM EST
Re: A good contextualisation of the speech... (4.00 / 2)
you could be a good speechwriter frank, all the riffs you did off obama were clarifying.

it was an amazing piece of oratory, whoever wrote it.

i heard a great interview with simon schama by bill moyers, in which simon says whenever obama opens his mouth, it sounds like one of the writers of the constitution, which i found very apt.

he's steeped himself in it till it's what he is...

for sheer rhetoric he's peerless, now for when the rubber meets the road, we wait agog in wonder.

can he pull a whole country out of a nosedive?

if anyone can, it's he.

that speech was brilliant, all the more powerful for its brevity and punch.
 

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Jan 21st, 2009 at 01:16:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: A good contextualisation of the speech... (4.00 / 1)
Apparently Obama writes a lot of his own stuff - his books are regarded as exceptional for a politician - and he is a constitutional lawyer - so he should know all the historical stuff off by heart.

The problem is that writing good speeches is one thing, running a good administration quite another.  He doesn't have a huge amount of management experience although his campaign and transition were very impressively run.

The real test will come when there is some serious infighting and subterfuge between competing agencies, particularly in the military-industrial complex.  How effective will he be in combating their attempts to "play" him - in the way they played Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs...  Putting someone like Panetta in charge of the CIA was a good start.

notes from no w here

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Wed Jan 21st, 2009 at 01:27:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Figureheads (4.00 / 4)
I still believe Presidents are figureheads. Like consciousness, presidents are there to communicate and motivate, internally and externally, what has already been decided. But they have almost no options.

That is why it is possible to have political poseurs such as Reagan and Bush Jr as Presidents.

Of course, a President can influence appointments based upon perceptions of his/her power, and the power of the political machine they have built up. But what else?

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Jan 21st, 2009 at 02:55:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Figureheads (4.00 / 1)
I find it interesting that Obama has kept his campaign organisation intact as an ongoing organisation - partly with an eye to the 2012 ele3ction cycle, no doubt, but also to act as a sort of ginger group to enable hime to continue to have the support of an activist base and avoid becoming entirely co-opted by the Beltway elite.

notes from no w here
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Wed Jan 21st, 2009 at 03:16:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Figureheads (none / 1)
Many US Presidential organizations have a similar gestation. The campaign operation creates trust in individuals, which is one of the few ways a president can surround themselves with loyalty and thus limited peace of mind.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Jan 21st, 2009 at 03:29:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Figureheads (4.00 / 2)
interesting perspective, to which i partially subscribe.

i think the times have called for a new politics, and he has answered that call, having previously done an enormous amount of homework to just that end.

his impressive use of the internet reminds me of chris cook's exhortations to dump the middlemen, his outreach is so granular, it's burst the banks of any institution that could have contained it and has so many believing in a better future where once they faced only a growing despair.

he has his ego in perfect harness to the needs of a people, and will lead by example, by austerity, if need be.

in this he reminds me of lincoln, another very saturnine man.

in some ways, he is rewriting the book on what being a leader should be, as well as a family man and responsible, socially aware human being.

unless he's the ultimate manchurian candidate, and all the new budget goes into 'pacifying' afghanistan, supporting israel to the continued tune of $15 million a day, bailing out billionaires...well i better stop there...

only time'll tell, if he's either the best news the political planet has had in centuries, or the slyest, most crafty, silver-tongued stooge in all of history.

my bet's on the former, but i have my moments, especially when he's doing the requisite daddy protector growl while talking about the bad guys.

i also sense some cog-diss in how one minute americans have to change from being resource hogs, and the next the american way of life is not up for negotiation, ala pappy bushman.

non quadra, as the italians say.

3 years from now we'll see obama doing photo-ops shovelling shit in his vegetable patch, riding his bike to work (not falling off his segway), and baking his own pretzels in his solar oven, (not choking on them).

one night a week in the homeless shelter, can all the pomp, and shows up for G8 meetings in dungarees.

doin' the funky chicken!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Jan 21st, 2009 at 03:34:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"To choose our better history" | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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