By Thomas Lifson September 11, 2013 It was all too obvious last night that the only reason President Obama gave his speech to the nation was that it would have been too embarrassing to cancel it. The result was inconsistent and unsatisfying at any level. (Transcript here) [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/10/transcript-president-obama-speech-on-syria/ ] Obama commandeered the nation's airwaves to call for a "diplomatic pause" in a Congressional vote he requested to affirm a military threat to enforce a red line he doesn't take responsibility for. The first half of his talk was intended to spark moral outrage, recalling his mind's "images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor." But the second half meandered off into Goldilocks territory as he promised to teach Assad a lesson that would be not too small ("The United States military doesn't do pinpricks" -- though SecState Kerry famously claimed it would be "unbelievably small"), and not too big ("I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria). Somehow or other, this man who never wore his nation's uniform, advised by SecDef Hagel, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, will thread the needle in punishing Syria with exactly the right amount of force that won't spark serious retaliation but will deter Assad. Jeffrey Lord of The American Spectator notes that the 3 most prominent hawks supporting Obama's Syria initiative are all veterans of a small war that escalated: John McCain wound up as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam in 1967, John Kerry wound up going to Vietnam in 1967 and so too did young Sergeant Hagel arrive on the shores of Vietnam in 1967. Say again: 1967. Which was three years after the President of the United States had solemnly pledged in 1964 - make that repeatedly pledged - that American boys like McCain and Kerry and Hagel would never...repeat never....have to be there in the first place. Besides being implausible, Obama's speech was also internally incoherent. As John Harris of Politico put it, this was a zig-zag speech. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog...ddress_to_the_nation_flops.html#ixzz2ebGDBPpm Obama at this point is trying to save his presidency from his repeated incompetent inept decisions.
There is no point in watching this turkey anymore, I missed it and am grateful. The OP makes a seemingly innocuous but significant point. The technical issues. The teleprompter too high and the banging and clicking on the podium... For an administration as slick in presentation as this one [remember when he even used teleprompters for in house stuff with staff?] to lose it that much indicates things are comming unraveled. I repeat what I have been saying, on Syria Obama's famous political instincts have failed him. His big question now is how does he fire Kerry? FFS, within hours of Obama making it sound like he's ready to bring down armageddon says an attack wil be "unbelievably small"... He's done as SecState
As speeches go, it wasn't a bad one. I think they've improved the teleprompter layout quite a bit because his eye-contact to the camera was better than I've ever seen it on him before. Here's the problem -- he utterly failed to do two absolutely essential things: 1. Explain why anything having to do with a Syrian civil war should involve active participation by the United States Armed Forces! 2. Give any PROOF that the poison gas attack was actually conducted by Syrian military forces under Asad's command. In fact, Obama gave NO PROOF whatsoever! And, outside of vague observations about how horrible it was that over a thousand people were gassed to death, he failed to explain how, or in what way any of that is the job of the United States to go barging into. So, Barack, I know you're all busted up emotionally about the poor people who were gassed, but if you're really concerned, what about the other 98,000 people who had already been killed by less spectacular means -- by ordinary, every-day bullets and bombs? Bottom line -- good speech-reading, good presentation. But, in all honesty, the message itself was illogical, and without any compelling reason why Syria's civil war should be America's problem.... And it this whole thing is nothing more than an elaborate schauspiel to impress the Iranians, then it is really unnecessary. The Iranians know (or should know) that we have sufficient "assets" in the Persian Gulf and close-by so that if we really needed to, we could bomb the whole country as flat as a board, anytime we wanted to. The centrifuges would still be spinning deep in the bunkers below, but there would be absolutely nothing but smoking, broken wreckage above the ground. We need to blunder into Syria's civil war to tell the Iranians that...? Nonsense!
Well I mean hell, where do I start. From his political gaffes overseas, to his ignoring of the Israeli ambassador, to his bowing and apologizing to fascist dictators for the way America has behaved, to his "red line" on Syria that wasn't ACTUALLY a red line because Syria has friends like Russia... to now the North Koreans are starting up their nuclear facilities again because they know he's a vagina and won't stand behind his word... they have nothing to fear. I could go on and on. He's weak and he's a joke in the international community.
