TWO RUMORS:

President Obama's speech to the troops in Afghanistan:

GREAT ~ EFFECTIVE ~ COMMANDER-IN-CHIEFLY

[or was it....]

AWFUL

Instapundit told me that the speech was being praised at National Review Online, which was, er, at odds with what I had heard. So I watched the five-minute video version (limp) and then went in deeper search for the full twenty-minute monty, and made my assessment to the delightful but misinformed Kathryn Jean Lopez. Here's my letter:

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am a double military mom, with one in the Marines (veteran of two Iraq tours) and one in the Navy (NFO training on F-18's); and my sister has one in the Navy, currently deployed on Individual Augmentation in Khost, Afghanistan. I first caught a ten-second cut of the President's speech to the troops and found it lacklustre, but my sister had seen the whole thing and gave me her take on it: AWFUL. So I looked for the video: there's the 5-minutes of edited highlights, again lacklustre, but also a distorted fraction of the full 20-minute performance.

The fact that it was 20 minutes says a lot -- that's about 12 minutes too long for cheering up the troops, and they responded as could be expected, with prolonged, deafening silence through most of it. But 20 minutes did give the President ample time to say the word "I" fifty-one times, plus variations of "me" and "my". It also allowed for seemingly endless and, in that context, weirdly extraneous references to all the civilians and politicians and members of every army not in the room, hard at work on the only aspect of the campaign that Mr. Obama appears to relate to, "international relations". Because, believe me, he does NOT relate to the troops.

It's hard to decide what was worse: was it the repeated (albeit more subtle than usual) slaps at Bush's "war of choice" in Iraq, through characterizations of this war that Mr. Obama has now chosen to adopt as his own being one with a "clear mission and the right strategy...and the equipment you need"; where America's institutions will not fail its military and we won't be "meddling in other people's business" [yeah, that happens a lot]? Or was it all the references to the "suffering...on your second or your third or your fourth tour of duty"? -- all the while oblivious to the fact that some of those in the room on their fourth tour of duty spent their earlier ones in that pointless, meddling war of choice in Iraq -- sucks to be you, guys.

No, I think the worst part was his litany of images borrowed from Tokyo Rose. I really want my kid to be sitting in a hall on the other side of the world, surrounded by evil men with bombs, listening to his president drone on about PTSD, traumatic brain injury, fighting to stand or walk again, flag-draped coffins, headstones, and a deceased comrade whose parents just received the (incorrectly named) "Medal of Honor" -- to say nothing of how much I miss my wife and children. Ooh-rah!

Robbed of his teleprompter, the President was forced to head-bob towards his text on the podium, which he did with reasonable success, but increasingly, as the minutes wore on, without heart and sometimes without sense -- his delivery broke up in strange places, and words written for emphasis got lost (though the "Tahleebahn" and "Pahkeestahn" got their customary careful enunciation). By minute 18 he looked bored.

Maybe you just have to be a military parent, mindful of how carefully you speak to your kid just before deployment, or when he or she gets to a war zone phone, or how carefully you write emails, letters, and Facebook shout-outs, always on full mental alert to sound confident and encouraging without being a Pollyanna, editing your accounts of spending time with his family back home, wondering just how many videos of his little boy at the beach or his birthday party to put on that flashdrive you're sending to Iraq, or how much to talk about that kid he graduated with whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan and whose name is now on the college monument and his football number retired.

There has been much long-distance psychoanalysis of Mr. Obama, even by licensed professionals who have never met him, and I don't approve of that. But from my seat in the amateur section, having waved goodbye to my kid a couple of times now before his imminent deployment to Anbar, I feel more than qualified to declare that President Obama has a breathtaking empathy deficit. Additional criticisms are easy to make, based on his clear record of personal alienation from the American project, and continuing adolescent romance with the failed Socialist (hell, let's call it Communist) project. He is, as Rush has wisely put it, the least experienced and least qualified person in any room he walks into these days. That accounts for some of it. But the rank obtuseness of his speech to the troops last week is one for the books.

Looking ridiculous in his flight costume, more Club Monaco "blouson" than Bomber Command, he could not have drawn a more stark contrast between himself and that bungling Chimpy McBushHitler who had the troops shouting the roof off in Baghdad a few years ago, speaking briefly and from the heart, and giving so much heart where it was needed.

Sorry, K-Lo -- Mr. Obama looked like something, but Commander-in-Chief it was not.

Down the memory hole:

GOD BLESS THE PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS WHO STOOD FIRM

The Stupak-pack flip made the difference --
without him and two allies,
THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE VOTES.

BART STUPAK, HEAD FOR THE SHOWERS, START WORKING ON YOUR GOLF GAME, FIND A FRIED EGG TO BE YOUR FRIEND, 'CUZ YOU ARE TOAST

Start going through the couch for loose change, America, to fund the Congressional campaign of Dan Benishek to unseat Stupak in Michigan's 1st District in November.

He Facebooks here. No donation link yet (who knew?) but he's got an address, and the checks are flying into the mail.

However, I gotta admit I'm feeling pretty good about the American people and their unwillingness to buckle under the withering contempt of their elected representatives. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this whole ugly process has been recorded for history, and more of the folks in flyover country are better informed than they have been in generations. The fat lady ain't sung yet. And the tight-faced lady better enjoy her triumph while she can, because the pitchforks are being honed.

No Democrat with two functioning brain cells can believe that their party will not get spanked for what they have done, in the face of the clear opposition of a substantial majority of the American people. Their willingness to commit seppuku on this issue demonstrates that the party is largely constituted of hardened leftist ideologues, and served by a leadership so secure in its incumbency that it doesn't give a flying fig-newton what happens to their fellows who have to face real elections back home.

I believe they are true believers in what they have just done -- that they are so deeply and willfully ignorant of basic economics, they think all their tricks and gimmicks might actually work. [They've been sneaky about them, especially with the CBO, because to be honest is to invite the scrutiny and interference of the fools back in the constiuency -- so tiresome.] They genuinely do not see that the United States has now taken the first step down the road to being a vassal of the Chinese Communist government. What they believe instead, and desire with all their hearts, is that this massive overhaul will be paid for by "the rich", individually and corporately, thereby eliminating the existence of the rich and of the corporate entity -- a consummation devoutly to be wished. [Also, of course, a recipe for becoming a vassal of the Chinese government.]

Oh, and it will also be paid for by the decimation of the American military, thereby eliminating America's role in policing the world's fascist maniacs -- added bonus.

The President is just now shoveling the self-congratulatory sh#t so fast [about how this vote is a victory for the little people whose voice has been heard] I just have to duck. Why is he still campaigning???? Stop! Stop! STOP!!!!!!

"This is what change looks like," he just said. Remember that, folks. It's the first genuine truth he has uttered this evening.

[Michael Ramirez again -- an oldie (last July) but a goodie.]

Update on the updated update: STUPAK CAVES
LET ONE HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM

Update on the update: Stupak still a no?

In times of fear and crisis, change your FIRST THINGS blog consultation from GATEWAY PUNDIT to

THE ANCHORESS

She has a way of distilling not just what's important among the issues, but what's the most important thing to be quietly praying for between clenched teeth. Pay heed, and your teeth might loosen up.

[While you're at it, pray for Bart Stupak and all the pro-life Democrats -- they need the courage of conviction right about now, since they are undergoing the modern-day political equivalent of La Peine forte et dure at the hands of Speakress of the Chambre d'horreurs Madame Tussaud.]


UPDATE: apparently the pile-on strategy still works (as it did so often in centuries past). "Pro-life" Democrat Bart Stupak has caved. He needs prayers now more than ever, I guess.

Meanwhile, Pelosi stands out side the Chamber, with an ENORMOUS gavel -- she's so obtuse that she doesn't see the symbolism invested in a giant instrument with which to hammer the peasants into submission. Will get that picture up as soon as it's available.


First hat-tip item: the work of military chaplains in Afghanistan, from the Sacramento Bee. A post to truly inspire.



Next hat-tip, a surprisingly informative 90-second version of how the American House of Reprehensibles came to be voting on health care today [talk about your "servile work on the Sabbath!]:



Heh.

Sob.

Thanks again, and a tip of the chapeau to the Anchoress, aptly-named Island of Calm in a Turbulent Sea as Lily-Agnes used to say.

TOO BUSY TO BLOG,

BUT SOMETIMES THERE'S NO POINT

Not when there's a guy who can say it better, faster.

Michael Ramirez strikes again. And again. And again.

And my personal favorite.........

You gotta laugh or you'll cry.

And you gotta hand it to Ramirez, for his handling of matters so absurd that they are almost beyond satire.

Memo to Hollywood: not sure that Hope actually floats.

TOO BUSY TO BLOG
GIANT PILE OF BLOGGERY IN THE IN-BASKET

Meanwhile.... the Oscars go to....

THE HURT LOCKER

I've been very confused since last Sunday.
Let me see if I have this right.


Dateline: Hollywood

Republican President: War = BAD.

Democrat President: War = GOOD.

Matt Damon's latest film =
biggest miscalculation of his so far stellar career, destined to be a GI-NORMOUS FLOPPOLA, like all the rest of the "We support our troops, but not their mission because they are homicidal animals, idiots, dupes, rapists, knuckle-dragging troglodytes" movies of the past several years.

War = SO EASY A CAVEMAN COULD DO IT.

Timing is everything, little Mattie. For eight years Hollywood and its leftist mentors were convinced that only one man was fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan [all personnel other than the President were just a faceless mass of non-persons] and they therefore wanted total defeat for him. Now Private Bush has come home and mustered out, and maybe those folks in camouflage aren't so confoundedly evil after all.

So now, under the New Regime of Barack Obama, war president, we keep our screaming, obscenity-laced pacifism to ourselves, don't we Tinsel Town? Yet, despite the resounding abject failure of every anti-American, military-loathing film cranked out since "Mission Accomplished", little Mattie follows the siren song of Zinn-inspired Amerikka hatred, and stakes his present stature on the biggest bugger-the-U.S. movie of all time, The Green Zone. Good move, junior. Take one for the Hollywood team.

Update: Now class, let's review:

Passion of the Christ -- opening weekend $84 million (2004 dollars) from 3000 theatres -- budget $30 million

Avatar -- opening weekend $77 million (2010 dollars) from 3500 theatres

Green Zone -- opening weekend $14.5 million from 3000 theatres -- budget $100 million

John Hinderaker at PowerLine tackles the musical question, "Does Hollywood make you stupid?" and provides a powerful sheaf of evidence for a big ol' "YES" by quoting the increasingly strident and incoherent Tom Hanks, on the subject of his new docu-drama on the War in the Pacific, a subject about which he clearly knows absolutely nothing.


ON COMPETING CHANNELS TONIGHT:

(1) Eastern Promises, dark movie about the Russian mob slithering around the dark underbelly of present-day London, directed by Canadian ghoul David Cronenberg, and featuring one of his favourite cinematic motifs, naked Viggo, as well as what Daily Mail critic Christopher Tookey calls "a kind of character virtually unknown in the Cronenberg canon: a good person."


(2) The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, funny old movie from the Cold War days (1966) about a Russian submarine accidentally grounded near Cape Cod, directed by Canadian Norman Jewison, who has a sense of humour, and got hilarious work out of Carl Reiner and Alan Arkin.

Unforgettable quote: "Eemehrrrgency, eemehrrrgency!!! Everyboddy to get from street!!"

Heh.