THE DAILY BLADE: A Missed Speech, A Speech That Missed
The Stiletto had to work late last night and missed all but the last 15 minutes of Barack Obama’s speech to Congress. The little she caught seemed stuffed with Dem applause lines – which can only mean more government spending. Obama promised not to raise taxes for families making less than $250K but – as usual - did not divulge the magic number for single, childless taxpayers. Is it $65K, $110K? The Stiletto will find out soon enough how much less money she will have to live on after her taxes get jacked up and she must still buy health insurance, save for retirement and pay rising rent, food, and utility bills.
Anyway, here are the verdicts of some folks who actually saw the speech.
The Stiletto did watch Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) response. Hoo boy. Gotta agree with the FOX News panel: poor delivery, sing-songy, simplistic and childish. Jindal not only overdid the “aw shucks” shtick (for one thing, he repeated the phrase “Americans can do anything” five times too many), he sounded like he was telling kindergarteners a story about The Big Bad Pork:
Democratic leaders in Congress … passed the largest government spending bill in history - with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a ‘magnetic levitation’ line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’ Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC.
That mag-lev thing is cool - but pork, nonetheless – and Jindal left people scratching their heads by lumping it in with volcano monitoring. What’s wrong with volcano monitoring? The government also spends money on earthquake, tornado, tsunami and hurricane monitoring – and it’s money well spent, considering the human and financial toll of natural disasters.
This is probably the dumbest thing the boy genius (The Wall Street Journal calls him "an Obama with accomplishments") has ever said. Except for when he said this: “We are grateful for the support we have received from across the nation for the ongoing recovery efforts. This spirit got Louisiana through the hurricanes - and this spirit will get our nation through the storms we face today.” What about that nearly $100 billion in taxpayer dollars allocated to Hurricane Katrina recovery?
But when she read Jindal’s speech, The Stiletto found some lines that resonated – including one about hope that was brilliant:
As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country - and they instilled in me an immigrant’s wonder at the greatness of America. …
Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did. It’s irresponsible. And it’s no way to strengthen our economy, create jobs, or build a prosperous future for our children. …
Republicans believe in a simple principle: No American should have to worry about losing their health coverage - period. We stand for universal access to affordable health care coverage. We oppose universal government-run health care. Health care decisions should be made by doctors and patients - not by government bureaucrats. …
Republicans want to work with President Obama. We appreciate his message of hope - but sometimes it seems we look for hope in different places [emphasis, The Stiletto].
Democratic leaders in Washington place their hope in the federal government. We place our hope in you - the American people. In the end, it comes down to an honest and fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government. We oppose the National Democrats’ view that says - the way to strengthen our country is to increase dependence on government. We believe the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington, and empower individuals and small businesses to grow our economy and create jobs.
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson calls Jindal the “anti-Palin” – “[f]airly or unfairly, media and intellectual elites … regard Gov. Sarah Palin as an inhabitant of another cultural planet.” Granted, Jindal “speaks the language of the knowledge class” but Palin is the shining star when it comes to putting over a speech, whereas last night Jindal was the meteor that crashed to earth.
Editorial Note: Nick From NY sent The Stiletto an Obama Bingo Game with likely phrases from his speech. It’s still not too late to play – just pick out phrases from the transcript of the speech with those on the bingo cards (“crisis” is a gimme – he first says it in the third paragraph, in the last paragraph and several times in between) and see if you get five in a row.
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