I will modestly disagree with blogfriend Jonathan Schwarz when he writes, à propos The Obama AfPakWarSpeak:
The decision's been made. Now all we need is a reason!That is to say, I think that this interpretation is right in spirit but wrong in fact.
It would seem to me that the decision-making process, such as it was, the set-piece meetings held in series over the last few months, have been mere prelude to a speech. We may recall that all of the "options" presented to Obama were the same option. It would therefore seem that what we have is not so much a decision in search of a publishable reason as a speech in search of an occasion. A small distinction, perhaps, but a difference nonetheless.
While I don't agree entirely with the popular conservative complaint that Obama "governs by speechmaking," it is true that the oratorical mode is his rhetorical preference. Where circumstances have presented the opportunity for him to engage his hortatory charms, he's leapt to it. Here, the daily dullness of occupation and counterinsurgency has simply failed to provide a punctuating event convenient for the delivery of a bit of revival wisdom, and so the producers of our great democracy have done what producers do: created an event. It is no more real than the latest fluctuations of Tom and Katie. Presidential addresses are so very like the movies in any case. They get released to the critics ahead of time; a few snobs pay attention to the reviews; everyone else goes, or doesn't; likes it, or doesn't. Someone at Slate writes a column. The Steelers drop another one. Christmas arrives. What were we saying?
16 comments:
oration and sports. his two weapons are oration and sports ... and ruthless efficiency.
Something about Freedom of '76, filmed at Woolworth's.
Nice prose!
"Of all the classes of men, I dislike the most those who make their livings by talking--actors, clergymen, politicians, pedagogues, and so on. All of them participate in the shallow false pretenses of the actor who is their archetype. It is almost impossible to imagine a talker who sticks to the facts. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the applause of the groundlings, he makes inevitably the jump from logic to mere rhetoric. His success is judged by the favor of his inferiors, or at all events of persons supposed to be his inferiors, and for that sort of thing I have no taste. If he is intelligent at all, which happens occasionally, he must be well aware that this favor is irrational and almost certainly transient. He is admired for his worst qualities, and he cannot count upon being admired for long. A good part of my time, in my earlier days, was spent listening to speeches of one sort or another, and to watching their makers glow under the ensuing clapper- clawing. I was always sorry for such men, for I soon observed that the applause of today was almost invariably followed by the indifference of tomorrow.”
- Minority Report H. L. Mencken
WAit? There's Tom and Katie news? WTF are you doing posting about Afghanistan, then?
I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.
I was talking about my rug.
for the first time in my football watching life i had the option of an african athlete or a german athlete and i desperately wanted the whiteboy. your boy, my boy, our boy dennis looked positively helpless at the end of that game.
Fuck you man. If you don't like my fuckin' music get your own fuckin' cab!
speaking of oratory, how 'bout that Ray Lewis?
I love your (mostly) daily analyses IOZ but I don't see Obama as the one behind the wheel on this - "this" being the several month long "promotion" of his Big Decision on Afghanistan in the USA fall political television line-up. Far too little "buzz" and chatter amongst the Village for it to be Obama directing the shots on this particular show.
dood have u nothing to say on TIGER WOODS? enough with war.
"What were we saying?"
Oh do not ask what is it ...
Of course we'll overstay our visit ...
On the air the pundits come and go
marvelling at Barry O.
Great point
That's a good Mencken quote, but H. L.'s kind of chucking rocks from a glass house there.
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