With Sirius XM radio you can hear the darndest things on a four hour drive from Dallas to Houston, like the same live Obama speech told both in Ohio and later at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
After telling the same jokes—including a shout out from Bo the First Dog—the President goes into a routine about how he and his family never wished to be rich. Rather, they only wanted the same thing that the hard working Americans in the audience wanted for themselves. Apparently there was an age old social contract whereby those who worked hard and played by the rules would be rewarded with economic and medical security. Unfortunately, over the last decade, two wars and a profligate prior president, led to tax cuts for the rich which has led us to the situation of 8.2% unemployment. The President, who came from a background that never wanted such prestige and power as he currently possesses, will be there to continue the fight against the enemies from the past who wish to take America to the failed “theories” of the past. If those enemies happen to be Americans too, well then that’s just a wash.
Don’t worry, the President is fighting against a “theory,” but he has a better “theory.” His “theory” is all about the home, school, and health loans that apparently made him what he is today. However, the fact that he is President of the United States is just an accident. If the past policies made him President, then it is only a lacunae in the general problems of the American system that can be fixed through good social legislation.
After all, President Obama’s family was just like yours, not wishing to be rich (not that there is anything wrong with that), but only wishing to play by the rules. If the President happens to be President, then that is just a tribute to the justice of America—but the justice of America is still inadequate until YOU too have the same opportunities as him.
And apparently there are enemies. According to the President he is fighting for a movement that doesn’t work from the top down, but from the “middle class” up (sorry lower class!). President Obama understands the presidency as an office of war against enemies of this middle class, of which he generously includes himself. He needs to be re-elected to continue this fight.
The rest of the President’s speech told us about the Golden Gate Bridge, the moon landing, and the internet. According to the President, America is a place where anything can happen, and his “theory” will make it happen. He just needs more time for his “theory” to become actual.
We would be stupid not to follow him.
July 7th, 2012 | 8:20 am
Great report; pitch-perfect tone of delivery, too.
July 7th, 2012 | 8:25 am
Thanks for summarizing what I could not bear to read, let alone listen to.
I still think the odds are strong he’ll lose, but it’s depressing how close it presently is. There are only three possible explanations for that:
1.) Democrats know O is a zero, and about as egregious a liar as has ever been in the office to boot, but feel they must fight the prospect of the Republicans holding both Congress and the Presidency.
2.) 55% of the nation either a) tunes out politics, or b) only tunes in the “MSM.”
3.) Politically, Americans are morons.
July 7th, 2012 | 8:35 am
Carl, 2 matters a lot. If Obama had gotten (for instance) the Palin treatment, he never would have become President and would have no prayer of a second term. Also changing demographics and the limited ability of Republicans to communicate with younger voters and large fractions of the non-white population means that Obama starts off with a base of around 46-47% which means the Republicans have to run the table with everybody else. Not impossible and might very well happen, but like Larry Sabato was saying yesterday, you’re probably not going to see Romney win by 10% the way Reagan did. It works the other way too somewhat. Dukakis won West Virginia, but Obama almost certainly won’t. The politics of fiscal consolidation is also real tough.
July 7th, 2012 | 1:31 pm
How funny that in the last election he was Mr. Extraordinary, amazingly full of Hope and Change, and the only person able to get us over the rainbow. Now we cannot be surprised at how little of that he pulled off, since he is an ordinary guy, although still indispensible to the transformation of America.
It doesn’t make sense or add up, what’s up there, but that IS the message we hear.
“We would be stupid not to follow him.” That’s what I hear from enough people to make me very nervous about November.
July 7th, 2012 | 9:58 pm
“With Sirius XM radio you can hear the darndest things on a four hour drive from Dallas to Houston, like the same live Obama speech told both in Ohio and later at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.”
Glutton for punishment!
With Sirius XM radio you can also dodge the Obama Speech altogether…
Which like Carl Scott I almost always do. I Listen to top 40 hits, Lithium and Pearl Jam radio, and also ESPN…Also I love the way Sirius has sort of commodified the ideological content!
I mean you can’t make this stuff up:
Channel 125: Conservative Talk.
Channel 127: Liberal Talk.
Channel 130: There is “Authentic Catholic Talk for the serious Listener”
Channel 143: Is for anyone interested in Mormonism, albeit this is simply Called: “Talk about Good” via BYU radio.
Channel 852: “More Conservative talk”
Channel 853: “More Left, Liberal, Progressive Talk.”
You do realize of course that the way Rock Music starts a revolution is simply by absorbing listeners into its content. In a sense Channel 22, or Pearl Jam radio is in a battle for the soul of its listeners against all the other commodified content/religions.
When you are listening to Channel 22, you aren’t listening to any of the other civic, musical or traditional religions. That is you are rejecting all the other pathways/options to the Good. At war with conservatism and progressivism, catholicism and mormonism, and country and rap and R&B and all the other potential “gospel” channels that would seek dominion over your ears.
If you are listening to Obama you are just giving him too much dominion, what if you get in a car accident and die, do you think God will forgive you for rejecting him by not listening to the authentic catholic channel?
Of course at the end of the day if you are listening to Sirius XM radio, you are probably paying Sirius, and like the Capitalist Buddhist, or perhaps the pantheistic opportunist..there are many paths to God(i.e. what brings me revenue, from Sirius’s perspective.)
So the idea that you are listening to Sirius, seems a sort of launching point, and in a way telling about the political climate. Just as one could listen to Obama and reject him, so too could one listen to Romney and reject him.
“We would be stupid not to follow him”, but lets say you reject Obama and embrace the salvation of Mitt Romney…(complete with a lifestyle change to listening to channel 143?)
Aren’t you still in a way listening to Sirius/Harvard Law, i.e. the institution that granted to both the commodity status of the Harvard JD?
July 8th, 2012 | 11:38 am
When I was on the law review staff at my law school, I was expected, in addition to editing and cite checking the submissions from law professors and practicing attorneys, to write my own article for publication. So where is the law review article written by Barack Obama? Anyone know?
As for being an ordinary guy, in his teen years and when he was going to college and law school he was in the household of his grandparents, his grandmother being a (white) vice president of a bank. Not exactly livin’ in the projects.
Aside from his personal aggrandizement, it was never clear to me what he had ever accomplished as a significant achievement of service to mankind before his coronation. That lack was highlighted by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize before all the trash had been picked up from the inaugural parade. When I first heard that news, I assumed it was a satire from The Daily Show. His emergence as the exponent of assassination by remote control makes one ponder the quandary of the future planner of the visitor center at his presidential library, who will try to avoid evoking laughter over the way he has proven the utter cluelessness of the Nobel committee.
July 9th, 2012 | 8:24 am
Carl: If the GOP had a candidate who couldn’t be so easily caricatured as Mr. Moneybags, he (or she) would be running away with this thing.
July 10th, 2012 | 11:26 am
“I still think the odds are strong he’ll lose…”
Just incredible! Romney is getting crushed in every swing state, and yet the odds are with him! And I thought Ron Paul supporters lived in an imaginary world.
July 10th, 2012 | 7:38 pm
[...] John Presnall, I have Sirius XM radio in my car. So I was driving home yesterday and I heard William Kristol on [...]
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