Like many Americans, I listened to President Obama’s farewell address to the nation. As was expected, it was delivered in his best rhetorical hyperbole. Strangely enough, it was also eerily similar to the speech he made eight years ago when he won the election. On that occasion he promised to unite a divided country and bring significant change to the way Washington worked.
True to that long-ago promise, he completely usurped the power of the presidency when it came to having a beneficial rapport with Congress. In spite of the fact that in his first two years he had a compliant Democrat Congress and Senate, the only so-called “major” legislation that he was able to get passed was the abominable Obama Care bill. The Affordable Care Act was 100% a Democrat effort without a single Republican vote cast for it.
Several things in his farewell address, which was delivered in his adopted home-town of Chicago before a rapt audience, that were amusing to me were his statement that America is now safer and stronger than when he came in, people should not live in a singular bubble but should interface directly on a personal basis, race relations are better and the economy has improved markedly.
These statements are typical of what we have heard the past eight years from Obama himself plus a couple of spokesmen that sought to carry a false narrative to the supplicant White House Press Corps.
To counter some of Obama’s assertions, we have only to look around the world with the chaos in the Mideast, the resurgence of Russian hostility, the posturing of North Korea’s leader and the Chinese expansion offering stark contrast.
As to living in a “bubble”, Obama is recognized as the most infrequent visitor to Congress ever to occupy the Presidency. He has instead opted to use his telephone and his pen to author executive orders and impose stifling economic regulations. When it comes to race relations, we have seen the outrageous “Black Lives Matter” participants invited to the White House while members of law enforcement around the country have been denigrated on a consistent basis. When it comes to the economy, by almost every measurement, the recovery from the great recession has been extremely tepid.
As a former political speech writer, I know that instructions to the speaker such as when to (pause for laughter) after a humorous line or appear to be misty-eyed after a heart-rending line are often contained in parentheses in the final rendition of the script. Obama’s seemed to be right on cue at the moment he whipped out a tissue and dabbed his eyes.
Most critics who analyzed his speech gave him great credit for the overall production of the event but little credit for the substance of his soaring rhetoric.
I noticed that his so-called “brain”, Valerie Jarrett, was in a prominent position in the front section of his audience. Just as Carl Rove was credited with being George W. Bush’s intellectual advisor, Ms. Jarrett has long been recognized as Obama’s chief advisor.
Strangely enough, it was Jarrett who, a few weeks ago, said that she was happy that President Obama had no “scandals” during his administration. Apparently, she did not read the many news accounts of scandalous behavior in almost every department that existed during Obama’s tenure. Just to name a couple, there is Eric Holder who is the only AG ever held in contempt of Congress and Lois Lerner of the IRS who refused to answer questions from Congressional investigators by taking the Fifth.
One of the reasons for Obama’s eight-year sojourn from reality might be attributable to the fact that one of his closest advisors, Ben Rhodes, has a degree in Science Fiction Writing. It may have been Rhodes who crafted the Benghazi video lie, and who helped foster Obama’s famous alternative view of reality.
As Obama rides off into the sunset on his high horse, one local wag has suggested it looks more like a hobby-horse.
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