I read the text of the speech and it seems a pretty good direct speech that address the event. Certainly appropriate for the event.
However it looks like the speech in practice had an issue. Not so much for the delivery but for the rally like atmosphere and the focus on democratic pols. The apparent booing of the republican Governor at the event didn’t help either:
Future politicos, please heed this advice. Never hold a memorial service in a university arena, and never give out T-shirts prior to the event. Those two choices set the tone for this entire spectacle. Some will excuse the bizarre atmosphere or blame it entirely on those in the audience to deflect attention from the president. But the president’s team had the final call on everything. They could have demanded a more suitable setting, and set a more appropriate tone. They didn’t. This gauche spectacle is the Obama administration’s fault. The tone of the event overshadowed whatever good words of comfort and honor were in his lengthy speech.
The Anchoress thought is wasn’t as bad as that:
I am not a person who likes applause at Mass, and I don’t like it much at memorials, either; the raucous crowd had even some mediafolk (Anderson Cooper comes to mind) expressing doubt about the cheering. I think it was simply the venue. A different venue, something smaller, quieter, more intimate, might have inspired a different sort of reaction from the crowds, but perhaps adrenaline was running some of it.
Tammy Bruce wasn’t impressed either.
This is all in great contrast to the MSM. MSNBC has been going on and on about the speech all morning as if it was the greatest thing they’ve ever heard. They are overselling the speech horribly. Chris Matthews likely has the tingle back in his leg.
There is a real danger to the administration that the media is overselling it. The public has become much more attuned to this kind of thing and any benefit the administration might get from these events could be lost. Particularly since the Oakland event turned out to be a disaster
and note this from the write up:
That’s odd: How can separate eyewitnesses to the same event come away with different impressions, Rashomon-style? Here’s how: note carefully what happens at exactly 1:20 in the video. You’ll notice that the lights which had been illuminating Roy Wilson are suddenly turned off, right when it becomes obvious that he’s going to continue his inappropriate political rant. What you’re seeing at that moment is a TV camera crew, which had been filming Roy Wilson’s speech for possible use as a soundbite in that evening’s news broadcast, realizing that the guy was going off-message — so they simply switched off the camera’s photo lights and stopped filming him because his speech no longer fit the media’s predetermined narrative.
My final take. The president made a good speech but the left is likely to blow for him because they have moved to his left big time.
And then there is time. The reason I believe that Obama entirely avoided politics, indeed rebuked the Krugman-Daily Kos narrative, is because he saw the pushing and shoving, read the polls, figured which way the wind was blowing, and steered clear of associating himself with the tone-deaf left. Conversely, because the left couldn’t restrain themselves, they pounced immediately and left a trail of inanity on twitter and websites.
The final lesson for the left is this: for the sake of a second term, the president is willing to throw liberals under the bus.
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I don’t’ know if we can go that far, but it’s certainly a thought.
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