Ok, I really don't get it - I watched Obama's presser last night and the man is absolutely fucking ponderous - where does all this praise for his speaking style come from? Sure, he does a damn fine job of reading off the prompter [and what the hell was he doing using a prompter at a press conference?!] - but so did Palin, in fact think she was better quite frankly, and now she's just the butt of 'stupid' jokes - whereas Obama is lionized to a rank somewhere between Pericles and Abe - but tell you one thing for sure, that long-winded, circumloquacious bastard could whittle away at his inveterate prolixity for ages and still not come close to the perfect brevity of a Gettysburg. Nearly sprained my face I was rolling my eyes so much. It's so obvious to me that when the man answers a question his whole focus is on sounding like his reply is ripe with substance, of projecting that image - but generally once you get past the rhetorical tricks you're left with something quite hollow - many of his answers last night were simplistic recitations of left wing talking points larded with clause after dependent clause of near gibberish - but he sounded good, or so it would seem. Now I'm not denying that Obama is a major step up from the sophomoric inanities Bush would fumble through - but still, I flat out don't get it. There's a decidedly irrational element to all this Obama worship.
Then again, it is possible to look at it a different way: that by being distinctly partisan last night, under the guise of sincerely wishing it didn't have to be that way, and thereby owning this stimulus, he could be playing a quite clever game of leaving the republicans seriously exposed should things turn around. After all, the stimulus could be a complete waste of money but if things improve it's gonna be hard to demonstrate that - a very risky game for sure, since a similar but different and possibly greater benefit could fall to the GOP should the turn around not materialize - but potentially a huge payoff.
Aside from some putative tactical 'brilliance' though - I still can't stand the way the guy pontificates - the tightened lips, the raised chin, the eyes narrowed as if he's staring right into the heart of things - very grating stuff and I'm astounded that so few seem to share my displeasure.
