At least not during the Q&A and Jeff Zeleney's 4 questions . . . QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office? Enchanted you the most from serving in this office? Humbled you the most? And troubled you the most? OBAMA: Now let me write this down. (LAUGHTER) OBAMA: I've got... QUESTION: Surprised, troubled... OBAMA: I've got -- what was the first one? QUESTION: Surprised. OBAMA: Surprised. QUESTION: Troubled. OBAMA: Troubled. QUESTION: Enchanted. OBAMA: Enchanted, nice. (LAUGHTER) QUESTION: And humbled. OBAMA: And what was the last one, humbled? QUESTION: Humbled. Thank you, sir. OBAMA: "All right. OK. Surprised. I am surprised compared to where I started, when we first announced for this race, by the number of critical issues that appear to be coming to a head all at the same time. You know, when I first started this race, Iraq was a central issue, but the economy appeared on the surface to still be relatively strong. There were underlying problems that I was seeing with health care for families and our education system and college affordability and so forth, but obviously, I didn't anticipate the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And so, you know, the typical president, I think, has two or three big problems. We've got seven or eight big problems. And so we've had to move very quickly and I'm very proud of my team for the fact that we've been able to keep our commitments to the American people, to bring about change, while at the same time managing a whole host of issues that had come up that weren't necessarily envisioned a year-and-a-half ago. Troubled? I'd say less troubled, but, you know, sobered by the fact that change in Washington comes slow. That there is still a certain quotient of political posturing and bickering that takes place even when we're in the middle of really big crises. I would like to think that everybody would say, you know what, let's take a time-out on some of the political games, focus our attention for at least this year, and then we can start running for something next year. And that hasn't happened as much as I would have liked. Enchanted? Enchanted. I will tell you that when I -- when I meet our servicemen and -women, enchanted is probably not the word I would use. (LAUGHTER) OBAMA: But I am so profoundly impressed and grateful to them for what they do. They're really good at their job. They are willing to make extraordinary sacrifices on our behalf. They do so without complaint. They are fiercely loyal to this country. And, you know, the more I interact with our servicemen and women, from the top brass down to the lowliest private, I'm just -- I'm grateful to them. Humbled by the -- humbled by the fact that the presidency is extraordinarily powerful, but we are just part of a much broader tapestry of American life, and there are a lot of different power centers. And so I can't just press a button and suddenly have the bankers do exactly what I want or, you know, turn on a switch and suddenly, you know, Congress falls in line. And so, you know, what you do is to -- is to make your best arguments,listen hard to what other people have to say, and coax folks in the right direction. This metaphor has been used before, but the ship of state is an ocean liner. It's not a speedboat. And so the way we are constantly thinking about this issue, of how to bring about the changes that the American people need, is to -- is to say, if we can move this big battleship a few degrees in a different direction, you may not see all the consequences of that change a week from now or three months from now, but 10 years from now or 20 years from now, our kids will be able to look back and say, "That was when we started getting serious about clean energy. That's when health care started to become more efficient and affordable. That's when we became serious about raising our standards in education." And -- and so I -- I have a much longer time horizon than I think you do when you're a candidate or if you're listening, I think, to the media reportage on a day-to-day basis. And I'm humbled, last, by the American people who have shown extraordinary patience and I think a recognition that we're not going to solve all of these problems overnight." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/obama-enchanted-surprised_n_193281.html
Landis, there is no doubt Obama is extremely bright and incredibly eloquent. It drives Dumbya fans insane that we now have a POTUS who is truly an intellectual heavyweight - an objective fact, regardless as to whether one agrees with all or even any of his policies. I've personally never seen such such a gifted or nuanced speaker, or someone as articulate and intellectually rigorous in the form of a politician as Obama. There is no doubt in my mind that Obama is methodical in his debate with his advisors, and that he challenges them intellectually at every juncture, something that Lil' Bush never was motivated or equipped to do, deferring to whomever was in the room at the time (most likely Cheney, Dark Overlord).
Obama is nowhere near the speaker or intellectual that Tony Blair is. Get over yourselves libs. I have seen Tony Blair ad-lib speeches that were much better than Obama's best telepromter speeches. Go watch King's "I have a Dream" speech sometime. Its worth noting that King had a speech written that he abandoned and he was ad-libbing for most of the speech. Obama has never delivered anything near that level of speech and he never will. Everytime Obama's teleprompter gets screwed up he stands up there like a deer in the headlights. If Obama has everything working right and the teleprompter is working and Obama is in his element then he puts out some good speechs. He is by no means anything great and when people say they have never seen better than Obama, it means they haven't seen much at all. It is my belief that Obama's speeches are highly sanitized and lack true heart because Obama's speechwriters run the speeches through a million focus groups to pick out keywords.
Marty: Obama has another Rev. Wright moment Apr 28, 2009 By Marty Richman During his campaign, President Obama took a lot of heat over his inaction regarding outrageous statements made by his old friend and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright was busy damning America while Obama passively remained part of the congregation. The national feelings on the issue eventually forced candidate Obama to break his relationship with Wright. After that, one might expect the president to have learned a lesson about passivity - obviously, those who thought so were wrong. At the recent Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the president was subjected to anti-U.S. tirades from two sworn enemies of the United States, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. Unfortunately, all the president did was smile. While diplomatic niceties may prevent him from taking a poke at those who heap insults on the nation and people he represents, there is no requirement to glad-hand and backslap those doing the insulting. There is no question that the majority of the electorate rejected George W. Bush's bright line approach to foreign policy that went, "You're either with us or against us." However, I do not believe a most Americans voted for open season on the United States, its people or its history. I'm not an Obama supporter and I doubt that I will ever be one, but I had no problem with his campaign position of talking to our enemies. We have talked to more dangerous enemies than these all the time in the past. We talked to the Soviet Union and we talked to North Vietnam during the height of that war, to name just two. My concern is not that we talk to our enemies and detractors, but rather what we say to them and how we say it. In this case, president Obama left the distinct impression that we do not care what attacks or distortions of history others use. Although almost 70 million people voted for the president, almost 60 million voted for someone else and he is president of all of us. I don't think it's asking too much for him to refuse to be a doormat for those who would disparage us; how about telling Chavez and Ortega, simply and straightforwardly - but very publically - "You are wrong." Liberals are always complaining that Americans refuse to learn from other countries; well, maybe other countries have more than a few things to learn from us. The first of those are some manners and the second is some respect. As usual, the Summit was mostly photo-op; it generated the same old buzzword press release from the White House and no measureable action plans. They left nothing out, they agreed to cooperate on the current financial crisis, strengthen efforts to reduce inequality, improve food security, promote health, and boost education, develop strategies to promote access to reliable, efficient, affordable and clean energy, especially for the poorest sectors and to promote environmental sustainability. They went on to commit, affirm, agree, strengthen and promote just about everything and above all everyone had a swell time. Chavez and Ortega promoted Cuba, president Obama had his picture taken and it was agreed that many countries in the hemisphere are in terrible shape and most of them put the blame for their problems squarely on the USA. Meanwhile, the president of the United States of America had another Rev. Wright moment at a very bad time. Who cares about idiot's intelligence.
Agreed 100% Anyone that watched and listened to President Obama answer those 4 questions last night had to be impressed with not only his eloquence, but how genuine and down to earth he is. If you missed the way in which he answered the 4 questions posed by Jeff Zeleney, I would suggest that you take a moment to play the video that is contained in the link of the original post on this thread. Truly impressive!
President Bush was not only a terrible speaker, which IMO isn't that big of a deal (stylistically), but he often failed to answer the specific questions that were asked of him, either because he didn't want to, or more often than not, because he had ADD and/or didn't understand the specific question asked (simple questions, even), and he would often go off on a tangent and provide a muddy response which had almost nothing if anything to do with the question asked. As the impish Tucker Carlson once said, 'listening to Bush speak is like watching a drunken man try to cross an icy street.' But it was far worse than that. Dubya had a listening comprehension problem like no one else I've ever seen, politician or otherwise. Like a damn fool drunken frat boy, in words and deeds: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5dfrHT8o-0A&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5dfrHT8o-0A&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Obama did not know what Enchanted meant. He also was unable to use it in a sentence, something a 5th grader could do. Surprised......by all the things he needs to do, maybe if you have never had a job in your life. What an awful press conference. He was boring, stuttering, long-winded, unfocused ,humorless.
You sound very confused. Sounds like George "Dumbya" Bush to me. So much jealousy, so little time. Racism is a Bit$ch, eh Mercor? Tell me, whatever happened to your buddy Maggot Light??? I heard he got kicked-off of ET.