Homework in Our Presidents
An article titled "Obama in the Republican Lions Den: Obama 2, Lions 1" and written by Brad Knickerbocker was printed today in none other than the Wall Street Journal, which is otherwise a definitely nonprogressive rag. It spoke of a speech given by President Obama to many of his fiercest legislative foes in the Congress, during a meeting that that group was having in Baltimore. The following two excerpts from that article especially caught my eye:
Questions were asked respectfully (for the most part), although some questioners took long minutes of speechifying to get there. As in the [British] House of Commons, the questions were blunt and sometimes pointed. But Obama came right back at them, citing chapter and verse from legislation and nonpartisan government reports, appearing to be at his wonkish best.
“...The whole thing basically went like [this],” Mike Madden wrote at Salon. “Republican asks obnoxious question rooted in Glenn Beck-ian talking points; Obama swats it away, makes the questioner look silly, and then smiles at the end. It got so bad, in fact, that Fox News cut away from the event before it was over.”
This made me ask myself, "Where have I heard this kind of thing before?" And I knew the answer instantly. Bill Clinton! And this means that B. Obama is the entirely worthy successor to B. Clinton!
Clinton was exactly the same way whenever he had his confrontations with the same bunch of bozos. Clinton always came prepared. He had done his homework, thoroughly, and not only during the night before but also all through his conscious hours of his adult life, and the upshot was that the Republicans, no matter how clever they were, and fatally hampered anyway by their 3-degree field of vision, could never do anything with Clinton, just as they fall so short while trying to deal face to face with the similarly talented and industrious Barack Obama.
So the Democrats might consider always picking their candidates on the basis of how close they are to the Clinton\Obama stripe -- especially given the way that it's hard to look through the whole roster of GOP presidents going back for 80 years and most likely more and find even one who couldn't almost always be counted on to show up without having done all his homework, and especially not well ahead of time.
Questions were asked respectfully (for the most part), although some questioners took long minutes of speechifying to get there. As in the [British] House of Commons, the questions were blunt and sometimes pointed. But Obama came right back at them, citing chapter and verse from legislation and nonpartisan government reports, appearing to be at his wonkish best.
“...The whole thing basically went like [this],” Mike Madden wrote at Salon. “Republican asks obnoxious question rooted in Glenn Beck-ian talking points; Obama swats it away, makes the questioner look silly, and then smiles at the end. It got so bad, in fact, that Fox News cut away from the event before it was over.”
This made me ask myself, "Where have I heard this kind of thing before?" And I knew the answer instantly. Bill Clinton! And this means that B. Obama is the entirely worthy successor to B. Clinton!
Clinton was exactly the same way whenever he had his confrontations with the same bunch of bozos. Clinton always came prepared. He had done his homework, thoroughly, and not only during the night before but also all through his conscious hours of his adult life, and the upshot was that the Republicans, no matter how clever they were, and fatally hampered anyway by their 3-degree field of vision, could never do anything with Clinton, just as they fall so short while trying to deal face to face with the similarly talented and industrious Barack Obama.
So the Democrats might consider always picking their candidates on the basis of how close they are to the Clinton\Obama stripe -- especially given the way that it's hard to look through the whole roster of GOP presidents going back for 80 years and most likely more and find even one who couldn't almost always be counted on to show up without having done all his homework, and especially not well ahead of time.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 5:47 PM
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