Put aside the merits of the two speeches by Barack Obama and Dick Cheney. What is interesting is the timing. I think Toby Harnden has an interesting observation:
But the very fact that Obama chose to schedule his speech (Cheney’s was announced first) at exactly the same time as the former veep was a sign of some weakness.
I think it’s more than weakness. Rather, Obama seems uncomfortable with dissenting voices being heard without a rebuttal. The war of words is one Obama is confident he can win if only he is heard, which is why Obama constantly is holding prime time press conferences, giving major speeches, and so on. While the need to counter-schedule a speech to offset Cheney’s previously planned speech reflects weakness for sure, it also reflects a lack of faith on Obama’s part in the ability of the American people to decide important issues.
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Great post!
I have videos of both speeches up at COMMON CENTS:
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com
“The war of words” = empty rhetoric. Demagoguery at it’s very best!
How true, How true.
Legal Insurrection has redeemed the tragedy of Cornell’s Cynthia McKinney disaster. If anyone ever wishes to curtail your free expression, please remind them that some of the alumni (who also happen to donate and to raise funds) are overjoyed to have your voice in the chorus.
This is a really strange post. Obama is not supposed to rebut his critics? The American people are supposed to “decide important issues” without hearing a debate?
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Interesting post. Let’s put the hypothesis to the test. Let’s bombard Obama with one entire week of high profile conservative speeches. Monday: Steele, Tuesday: Limbaugh, Wednesday: Gingrich…and so on. How would Obama react?
@Eric,
this is a very strange statement. How can a person rebut another person if that other person has not first mad the speech?
It is so typical of the liberal mind that he/she follows the script that has been given through Twitter that the person goes to “x” site to give the meme of the day.
I have read the speech by Cheney. It was good. Obama, the empty suit and narcissist that occupies the White House has made a lot of blunders and the biggest of those has been the releasing of memos on interrogation techniques. He has been challenged to provide the remainder of the memos that shows that these techniques provided fruitful information. Cheney would not be making the challenge if he was not confident about the content of those memos. The fact that Obama refuses to release them is evidence that the initial release was nothing but a political stunt meant to bolster Obama and to tear down the previous administration.
One does not have to love either Cheney or Bush, but as an outsider I have to admit that it is only now that I am getting a really good look at the former VP and it is not all that bad considering what I had been led to believe by the MSM.
I think what started with an interesting observation, the “speech / counter-speech” issue, succumbed to mere partisan “analysis.”