Jonathan Chait of the New Republic
President Obama’s speeches have always been notable for both their exquisite prose and their unusually high intellectual level. Tonight’s speech, while probably as effective as such speeches can be, was neither.
The dropoff between rhetoric penned by Obama and that by his staff, always noticeable, was especially so tonight. When he declared, “health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo,” I wondered if his budget freeze had already claimed the entire White House speechwriting staff.
Obama suggested that we should embrace alternative energy sources even if you doubt climate science. (I’m pretty sure that, if carbon dioxide were harmless, we’d be better off sticking with the cheap energy.) He embraced some hoary populist tropes, in which “Washington” and “us” are homogenous, mutually exclusive categories, and he belongs to the second. (“Washington has been telling us to wait for decades.”) And his rationale for a budget freeze made no sense whatsoever. “I am absolutely convinced that [the stimulus] was the right thing to do,” he said, “But families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.” Um, why?
And when Obama announced “I do not accept second place for the United States of America,” I thought I was listening to Otter:
I can't tell if Chait forgot that Obama was a black man for a moment. (see previous post)
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