URLs du Jour

2009-09-10

Your non-diligent blogger did not watch President Obama's speech last night; Netflix sent us Hawaii Five-O, Season One, Disk Two. And some things naturally take precedence over others.

  • Apparently there was a brouhaha at the speech, as an unusually outspoken legislator decided to Speak Truth to Power, albeit somewhat rudely. Bruce McQuain has the context.

  • Jennifer Rubin was also deeply creeped out by the speech:

    The scope of his ambition and the disdain with which he regards his opponents are startling. Never once in his speech did he concede the merits of his opponents' concerns. It is all silliness, lies, misunderstanding, and partisanship--by the other guys.

  • And John Hinderaker has a long analysis. I liked this reaction to Obama's statement that the "time for bickering is over":

    I'm not sure whether Obama and his handlers understand how this sort of talk grates on those of us who are not liberal Democrats (a large majority of the country). Debating public policy issues is not "bickering." Disagreeing with a proposal to radically change one of the largest sectors of our economy is not a "game." This kind of gratuitous insult--something we never heard from President Bush, for example--is one of the reasons why many consider Obama to be mean-spirited.

    I plan on continuing to bicker, myself.

    John also makes the good point that Obama decried "scaremongering" shortly before doing some scaremongering himself, an equally grating habit that doesn't wear well on the unenchanted. All in all, John concludes, that it was "not … a speech that was directed at thinking people."

  • Matt Welch concentrates on Obama's lies misrepresentations, exaggerations, and prevarications. One stuck out:

    And in a critical, tic-riddled passage that many of even his most ardent supporters probably don't believe, Obama said: "Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits-either now or in the future. Period." In case you couldn't quite read his lips, the president repeated the line for emphasis. Then: "And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize."

    Emphasis added. Pun Salad has blogged about that "dime" formulation before: here and here. Matt agrees with our conclusion: when Obama says "dime", it means he's probably lying being less that straightforwardly honest.

  • But returning to more important topics: Hawaii Five-O had, if not the greatest TV theme music ever, certainly in my top five. (YouTube video not embeddable, sorry, but if you click over, be prepared to have that music stuck in your head for a few hours.) More info at Wikipedia.

  • The episodes themselves: enjoyably quirky. The ones we watched last night had (1) Sal Mineo as a wayward kid staging a his own kidnapping in a plea for attention from rich daddy Harold J. Stone; (2) Ricardo Montalban playing a Japanese crime lord, but (of course) with his normal Roarke/Khan accent. McGarrett had no comment on that. Both Mineo and Montalban were, eventually, booked.


Last Modified 2012-10-05 2:18 PM EDT