Stupidist Quote of the Week

A new feature... and yes, I'm aware of the spelling... we're trying to be ironical...

It's early in the week, yes, but I don't think anyone can beat this one.

I once watched Chris Matthews deliver a commencement speech at my alma mater. Decent speech, nothing spectacular, a few funny moments, as you would expect from someone on television.

I once met him on an Acela train from D.C. to New York. We talked for a couple minutes when he noticed I was listening to his discussion with two other gentlemen and I confirmed his assertion that Texas, under the terms of its annextation to the United States, could subdivide into five states if it wished. Matthews seemed like he does on TV -- an opinionated but nice (and loud) guy.

I'm now under the impression that he's a complete moron, based on this statement regarding the President's speech...



(hat tip: Jammie Wearing Fool and Instapundit) West Point is an enemy camp for an American President??? I know what Matthews is trying to say, that perhaps the cadets aren't Obama's biggest fans. But calling West Point an "enemy camp" for the President is a brainfart of epic proportions. I'm not the only one thinking that the tingling sensation Matthews talks about when he hears Obama speak has now gone to his brain...

Confused by his tingling brain and perhaps thinking Obama was refereeing a West Point football game, Matthews spoke of his surprise that a group of "young kids--men and women who were committed to serving their country professionally it must be said" didn't demonstrate "a lot of excitement" because he "didn't see a lot of warmth in that crowd out there." (But Matthews is the sort who notices and finds important what others don't; eg, Sarah Palin admirers are mainly white. All of these comments reveal much about Matthews but little about the situation.)

Uh Chris, cool your tingling brain; West Point is a military academy with some of the finest "young kids" in the nation, serious people with an important mission; not an evil institution where presidents and others go "to rabble rouse the ' we're going to democratize the world' " rah! rah crowd! But you wouldn't know the difference.

Matthews is way off base here. Think about this -- as noted here, can you find an audience outside of one of the Service acadmies where at least one portion of that speech would not have been booed by people on the right or the left? Those cadets deserve credit for applauding politely during a lackluster effort by the President, particularly when they've got final exams coming up, which are almost certainly harder than the craptastic finals I got to take in college. Their lives are hard enough without calling them an enemy camp.

Matthews should apologize. But I hope he doesn't add West Point to the next Hardball college tour as part of the apology -- those cadets don't need to suffer further.

The President's Speech, and Why I Miss Bill Clinton

I think Barack Obama has succeeded in the impossible.

He's made me wish for the return of Bill Clinton.

I've never sat through a Presidential speech like last night's. Obama outlined a strategy that I largely agree with. Save for the decision to tell everyone the exact timetable we're on, which I consider a foolish concession to the leftist anti-war base that won't be satisfied with it, I can't quibble with what he said we'd do.

But dear God, that was painful to watch. I watched it late night on Tivo, and was heavily tempted to fast-forward. It was like watching a the favored high school senior deliver a limp speech in the speaking contest.

It's not the words, although I agree with those who think it would have been nice for the President to actually say the word "victory" once. It was the delivery -- Obama didn't want to be there. He doesn't want to be a wartime President -- that's not why he wanted the job. That showed, as noted by Tunku Varadarajan...

What has struck me most about Obama's Afghan enterprise—and his speech did not cause me to alter my view—is how obvious it is that he doesn't really want to do it. He wants to do health care. Obama has tried every delaying trick in the book—waiting for three months after Gen. McChrystal's request for more troops, having meeting after meeting after meeting, sending Gen. Jones to tell McChrystal not to ask for more troops, having his economic team say it will cost too much, framing the venture in terms of "exit strategies" rather than victory, etc. His ambivalence was on naked display tonight. Can you imagine Churchill delivering a speech like this, one so full of a sense of the limitation of national possibilities? No wonder Hillary—when the camera panned to her—looked like she needed a drink. No wonder the cadets all looked so depressed. Would you want Eeyore for commander in chief?

Oh, the cadets -- I felt sorry for them. Stephen Green drunk-blogged the speech. Amazingly, drinking didn't help make the speech better, which is a sure sign things were bad. Read his whole blog, but these parts were telling...

The officer speaking is having to remind the cadets to stand and applaud, because President Obama “is our commander-in-chief.” Think anyone had to remind cadets to be nice to the last president?

...I mean, he’s STILL going on about protocol. Reminds me of a story I heard at BlogWorld last month down in Vegas. I can’t give many details, but another Army officers had to remind his soldiers to applaud politely when Obama spoke. Not young, inexperienced cadets, but hardened battle veterans.

... “Our effort in Afghanistan.” “The scope of our interests.” He did finally use the word “war,” but not before framing everything in academicese.

...“July of 2011.” Congrats, AQ. Keep your head down until then, and you’ll do fine.

Again, these are not strategic decisions the President has made after ten months of review. This is kicking the can further down the road, but with a slightly bigger boot.

...Bad writing. Lame delivery. Tepid response — from cadets ORDERED to be nice.

And a strategic vision equal parts High School Essay Content and low-rent public relations.

I hope you had as much to drink as I did.

I didn't, but I needed it. We'll get back to the cadets in another post (Chris Mathews' outrageous and stupid comment about them included). Rich Lowry's got a great take on the speech...

Obama deserves credit for making this call, which wasn't easy given the inherent difficulties of Afghanistan, his own instinctive reluctance to use military force and the fierce opposition of his political base.

He stepped up -- but couldn't conceal his hesitations. It's a strange rhetorical trick to announce a policy and at the same time sow doubts about your own suitability to carry it out, yet Obama managed it.

...Obama constantly looked over his shoulder at his own restive party, and sounded dog whistles for the Left. He implicitly blamed Bush for everything short of the creation of al Qaeda, and cast his decision in light of his own reluctance to use force and his opposition to the Iraq war.

More importantly, he set out July 2011 as the month "our troops will begin to come home." This gave the speech an element of a Rorschach test: Some will see a stalwart re-commitment to the war effort; others, a promise to begin getting out in 18 months.

...Now, no matter what Obama's inner conflicts, McChrystal gets his chance to regain the initiative in the war. If he succeeds, the domestic politics of the war will begin to look different and at least one cause of Obama's psychic anguish will be alleviated.

Yes, it would've been better if Obama hadn't sounded at times like a premature Nobel Peace Prize winner shoved uncomfortably into a role of wartime leader. But, as Don Rumsfeld might say, you go to war with the president you have.

Ouch. Again, I have no earthly clue why some idiots are praising this decision -- Obama could have said we have a timetable for leaving, but the conditions will be dictated by what's on the ground. Even if he fully intends to cut things off in 18 months, there's no reason, other than domestic politics, to announce it. I understand that you're challenging the Afghans to start standing up for themselves. You're all convincing al Qaeda and the Taliban that if they can hang on for 18 months, they can indeed run out the clock.

Beyond that, the speech seemed passionless. The words as written were passionate, but the delivery was not. Obama's heart wasn't in it, and that's why the troops seemed tepid. As one of my good friends noted in an email, this needed to be a battle cry, at least a little bit. In sports terms, we needed Knute Rockne or Vince Lombardi or Bobby Knight. We got Jim Zorn.

Part of me wishes Obama would have gone with what he thought was right, even if I think he's wrong. I sense he wants out of Afghanistan, but won't do it for political reasons. That's not good -- not good for our chances of success, not good for the President, and definitely not good for those cadets and our other troops.

Clinton would have certainly made it more entertaining. And even if he would have been just as calculating and unsure, he never would have conveyed that in the speech. Even though the guy's a reprehensible human being in many ways, he understood political leadership has its time for expressing doubts, and that this would not be one of them. Obama betrayed that doubt throughout his speech last night.

But Lowry's got a point -- we're used to our troops pulling off miracles. Now they need to win a war with a leader who doesn't seem to want to fight the battle, after having told the enemy when we'll stop fighting.

God bless them.

That Speech Tomorrow Has To Be Good

Peggy Noonan's take on Obama's current situation is well worth reading. Remember my take on Obama reaching a tipping point? Obama still has a chance to turn around the impression of his White House as incompetent (although crap like this, even though it's clearly not his fault, doesn't help that impression either). But Noonan's observing the Washington old hands calling for Obama to bring in some Washington wise men to help correct his course. As she noted, that's when a President is in trouble.

The President still has enormous personal appeal to the voters, and their desire not to be proven wrong about a guy many enthusiatically supported just one year ago. But he needs more, and soon, or else he's going to be in real trouble. In this sense, his speech on Afghanistan tomorrow is extremely important. His decision-making hasn't inspired confidence thus far, but perhaps his words will. If not... yikes.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

Apparently, the DNC minions are stealing a page from the Harvard law professors -- they're cutting and pasting with the best of them. Check out this tale from Kerry Spot...

Richard Roeper is no fan of Bush, but he is proof that the DNC/MoveOn.org and various lefties' efforts to influence the pre- and post-debate spin has gone too far and is now looking clumsy and phony.

Last Thursday's presidential debate was still in progress when the e-mails started trickling in from citizens around the country. At 8:28 p.m. CST, Catie Tierney of Douglas, Ga., wrote: "John Kerry did an AMAZING job tonight. His arguments were valid and very well-said. I sincerely hope he wins the election this fall. He will make a far better president than Bush."

Harvey Jones chimed in: "Have you noticed Bush's body language? He seems to be blinking an awful lot. I hear this is one of the usual signs of lying."

Next up, Anne Horton Wood of Knoxville, Tenn.: "John Kerry showed the voters why he should be president, while Bush looked and sounded like a whiny little boy who has grown old, but has never grown up."

At 9:31 p.m., the trickle of e-mails turned into a hurricane.

"I am an undecided voter in Florida," wrote Andrew Monaco, "and I wanted to let you know that I think John Kerry won the debate.... Kerry was more in command of the issues and looked more presidential. The president was flustered and distracted."
Joyce Mulazzi of Suwannee, Ga.: "John Kerry proved he is a LEADER by discussing his plans for our country and discrediting President Bush's claims. George Bush proved that he is a CHEER-LEADER by . . . stating over and over again about the hard work he's done. It's not hard work lying to us, alienating us from the rest of the world, ruining our environment, and making the rich richer."

Pam Gordon, Orchard Lake, Mich.: "Kerry was the clear winner. He was poised, knowledgeable and outlined his points clearly."

Kristine Serrano, Westminster, Co.: "I am a registered independent who has decided to vote for John Kerry. President Bush looked very unprepared for the debate. Sen. Kerry . . . possessed excellent command of every issue."

The flood of "Kerry won!" messages continued all Thursday night and well into Friday — more than 500 in all.

And not one supported Bush.

Even most Bushies concede the debate was not the president's finest moment — but come on, 500 to 0? These e-mails seemed about as authentic as the missives I get from Congo dictator Mobuto Sese-Seko, asking my help in transferring his secret stash of millions.

Well, it turns out other people noticed. James Taranto at Best of the Web noted how the Bergen Record managed to print two letters employing the same phrasing as the sample letters on the DNC website. The Chicago Tribune even printed an editorial about it. Gotta love those dedicated flying monkeys of the left.

Speaking of stupidity... here's Teresa Heinz Kerry on Sunday in Pittsburgh...

The war in Iraq has cost America the respect of her allies and the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan, Heinz Kerry said at a dinner at the Sheraton Four Points in Greensburg.

"On 9/12 every single newspaper in the world said 'We are all Americans.' Today it is not the case," she said.

By sending American troops to Iraq instead of to Afghanistan, Bush permitted Osama bin Laden to escape, Heinz Kerry said.

"Osama bin Laden is Osama been lost," she said.

"The Taliban is back running Afghanistan," Heinz Kerry said.

One last time -- I DON'T CARE THAT THE REST OF THE WORLD FELT SORRY FOR US WHEN WE WERE ATTACKED. I DON'T WANT TO BE ATTACKED AGAIN. If we can do both, fine. If we can't, screw their feelings. In case you don't understand, nothing aggravates me more than this idiotic drivel by the left.

Next, the Taliban is in charge of Afghanistan? Even the left-wing dishrag is predicting a successful election on Saturday in Afghanistan. Maybe THK has her head buried in a bottle of ketchup. If she somehow becomes First Lady, I guess I'll be guaranteed some entertainment.