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March 22, 2009

The Times Call for a Leader Not a Reader

 

 

Mark Steyn posted another of his famously snarky pieces on NRO this week about Obama, Gordon Brown, and the DVD box set that couldn’t.

 

Aside from the idea that “wrong region” might also apply to Obama’s friends and enemies lists in international diplomacy is the ever clearer reality that Mr. Obama is neither the jack nor the master of his trades:

 

I haven't run into Gordon Brown in over a decade, but my memory of the last time I met him in a TV green room is of a glowering misanthropic type who enjoys nursing a grudge. What doesn't go around (in the DVD player) comes around. When the president and his Teleprompter visit London for the G20 summit in a couple of weeks, it would be a tragedy were Barack Oprompta to rise for his big speech to find nothing but the words "Wrong Region" flashing on his screen (although I'm sure the Queen would be very polite and string along and make all the swells stand up and join the toast to "Ron Region", whoever he is).

 

But don't forget, folks: Somewhere in Texas a village has been reunited with its idiot, and we now have the whip-smartest administration of David Brooks's lifetime.

 

Reading Steyn, one almost invisions C-3P0 with his little friend R2-D2 at his side lost and stumbling around as the universe explodes around them, and sadly, that seems so far a fair comparison. Unlike the movie, however, the prompter cannot save the day for its companion or the good guys; its words are merely words when spoken hollowly by a man whose heart does not know them and whose mind chooses not to explore them or their ramifications. It means that as right or as wrong as the words on that prompter may be, the prompter proves itself more of a president than the man reading them.

 

 

 

Obama speaks badly without his prompter not because he is a bad speaker, but because he has failed to own the issues, to be a deep thinker, to be anything other than a political opportunist. Like a weatherman, he simply reads whatever the real meteorologists tell him and little more. It is why not only is he proven to be a bad speaker without some hand-holding, he is a bad executive and a horrible leader. In a word: incompetent.

 

If Barack Obama seems to lack common sense, it is because he simply does not think; he simply spits out what others tell him. As Ronald Reagan might say, it's not that Barack Obama is ignorant; there is just so much that he knows that isn't so.

 

One imagines perhaps Mr. Obama years ago as one of those school kids with whom we all grew up who got by through merely reading and spitting what he read back out at the teacher, but was never challenged to grow beyond that. Remember that day Teacher's Pet came unprepared and had forgotten to do his reading? Many of us might recall the way he stuttered and stammered about trying to come up with something that sounded good in hopes his good marks heretofore would help carry the day.

 

Rush Limbaugh would no doubt refer to Obama as a “phony baloney-plastic banana-good time rock ’n’ roller.“  And, if our Dear Reader were running for Miss Teen USA without his teleprompter, he might as easily be caught saying things like this:

 

“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.”

 

 

 

One almost can see him texting his dismay over being forced to give up his BlackBerry upon entering the White House: “OMG! They wanna take my bb! WTH! NO FRKNG WAY!”

 

 

Barack Obama, my friends, is not a leader, but a reader. At best, a teenage girl trapped in a president's body, unable to talk on his cell and chew gum at the same time. Ronald Reagan never had this difficulty and it wasn't because he was a better speaker; it was because President Reagan owned the issues and knew what he was talking about. This in turn made Reagan a reliable man of action, and, by virtue of this, a great leader. This aura of incompetence seems to surround and permeate every aspect of the Weatherman Obama and his administration. In 2012, America needs to find someone to serve the people by running the government competently; someone other than Miss Teen USA, “so that we will be able to build up our future, for us”.

 

 

Posted by Martin at March 22, 2009 01:30 PM

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Comments

It's just like you previously mentioned... in any case, if that teleprompter goes off, your heart should start speaking. Obviously, this is not the case. It's a creepy thought. I mean, shouldn't 'public speaking' be a prerequisite for the Presidency? Not that the former was a great one, but it was what it was. Even the best actors know how to improvise. Cleverness is also a good trait ;D

Posted by: Li at March 22, 2009 11:11 PM

One recalls a certain Sarah Palin and her moment at the GOP Convention of teleprompter failure. How did she fare? That was the moment when the famous lipstick on a pit bull sound bite instantly propelled the Governor of Alaska into an overnight sensation.

Posted by: Martin at March 23, 2009 02:40 AM

Yet she was such a horrible person to so many... and why? Who knows. I sure saw a winner; a relatable human being. I guess these days celebrity status trumps national security and everything our forefathers fought for. Where does a nation go without its morals?

Posted by: Li at March 26, 2009 09:26 PM

I think most Americans tend to love folks like Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan; however, the media is working harder than ever to filter such leaders' words so that what America thinks it sees is not what really is. At the end of the day, what won it for Reagan was his ability to talk over the heads of mainstream media; in particular, during press conferences and interviews. Granted, her interviews were edited without anyone's knowledge and done so with malice, but aside from that which one cannot control, she must master what she can if she is to give us what we so desperately need. She's pretty good already; she'll just have to get wiser and craftier to get past the gate keepers.

Posted by: Martin at March 26, 2009 09:35 PM

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