The Atlantic Gets Catty On Obama
I watched the President’s speech last night. It didn’t fill me with warm fuzzy thoughts nor leave me overly inspired; but it certainly wasn’t the worst Oval Office Address I’ve ever seen. In fact, compared to the previous dozen or so that I recall from this millennium, I’d say Obama’s was middle-of-the-road at worst.
But, after reading Clive Crook’s review on The Atlantic I began to question if maybe I had watched the wrong address from someone else’s President.
According to Crook, the speech was surprisingly bad, lacking in facts and void of details on what’s being done and who is in charge.
That just isn’t the speech I heard. I won’t comment on the “surprisingly bad” point because good or bad is sort of an eye-of-the-beholder thing I think, but the speech was full of facts covering what has happened, what is being done and what should be done going forward.
Obama also seemed pretty darn clear about who was in charge, and who owned the feet (BP’s) that were going to be held to the fire. He did everything but declare himself the “New Decider” when it came to showing he was in command and on top of the crisis from what I heard.
By the middle of his piece Crook seemed to dive down to whining about Obama having vision and big ideas for the future, as if those might somehow impede his ability to handle the here and now. That’s like saying someone driving on the highway can’t think about their destination 10 miles away or they’ll crash and burn on the spot.
I’m aware that we became used to a President who was totally focused on the moment at hand, so much so that he would spend up to 7 minutes just thinking about the single moment at hand…but that doesn’t mean we should immediately knock a guy who has the capability to deal with what’s on his plate while also contemplating what he might want for desert. The ability to multitask is typically a good thing.
By the end of the article Crook sinks all the way down to schoolyard-taunting of the President for appearing nervous and moving his hands too much–I honestly believed Crook’s final sentence was going to be a haughty “and did you see those shoes he was wearing”.
Then, upon reaching the conclusion of Crook’s piece I realized the reason for his “scorned woman” tone. The President had made clear that the time for lip service was done and the time for acting on our addiction to oil and all fossil fuels has arrived. It became apparent why that position might spark animosity from Crook and The Atlantic when I saw the sponsor’s advertisement next to the end of the piece:
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that Exxon Mobil is helping to fight malaria, it would be better if they were doing good things without funding them by raping the planet and mortgaging our descendant’s futures…but that’s for another posting.
For this post, I’ll just summarize with:
- The President made a clear “your days are numbered” announcement to Oil and other fossil fuel companies last night after defining where we are and where we’re going with the gulf spill
- Crook at The Atlantic seemed to dismiss the majority of the speech and shoot off an oddly harsh “let’s girlfight” review of the President’s appearance
- That review ends at a nice large advertising piece from an Oil company
The dots aren’t hard to connect if you’re looking…
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About Scott Bannon
A conservative liberal with a perspicuous perspective on American politics.
Scott's writings have been published on dozens of news and opinion outlets both online and off.
