Thursday, January 13, 2011

A Civil Union

Nobody really does speech like Obama. He's a pro's pro (sorry Slick). And last night he gave a good one, impressing some conservatives and even himself. The media will hesitate to admit it but he'll get a bump in the polls from it. They should feel no shame after handicapping it ahead of time.

But what about the true takeaway? Most speeches have takeaways. He spoke of the victims and their lives and stressed a message of hope for a better country, all very presidential, but were people talking about that on the way home? Much was made of his short, terse comment about the discourse--"it wasn't", as in, it wasn't at fault, a part he ad-libbed. Most saw that as a refudiation of the Krugmans, Dupniks, and those View lady liberals who went into tilt mode on their PDS, but then again he didn't specify, which tended to leave Palin lingering in the crosshairs.

In the real world, takeaways would probably include mental illness, gun control (or not), the state of America's yoots, or the horrors of Nihilism. But the takeaway seems to be about civility:
Overnight, she became a national symbol of a longing for civility - a young girl full of innocent magic, curious about the world around her, brimming with excitement over her recent election to her student council.
Is that what she really became, a longing symbol of civility? What happened to a longing for locking up nuts who've previously come into contact with the police but never got sent away?

Time will tell, memories are short, but if the takeaway blossoms into a political civility construct it will become quite obvious the true intent of Obama's speech (or wishful offshoot) was chilling political speech. Feel free to question the timing just as the GOP congress arrives with their sights set on repealing Obamacare. Figuratively speaking, of course. Consider this bold proposal regarding the upcoming State of the Union Message:
“I appreciate Senator Udall’s thoughtful suggestion and believe it is worth serious consideration. We need to look for more ways to be bipartisan. This morning I spoke with Democratic Whip Hoyer and Senator McConnell about the proposal and we will discuss it further next week. After this tragedy, it’s important for our country to see that we all stand together as Americans and this could be one way to demonstrate that.”
That's Reid talking about non-segregated seating for the State of the Union for the first time in 200 years to show civility (say goodbye to the good ole days when Obama could rebuke sitting Supreme Court judges sitting in the front row who can only mouth things). That won't sit well with Boehner but he'll be hard-pressed to come out against civility. That would be uncivil! And going past the SOTU they know the press will be there to catalog all acts of GOP incivility and token levels of lefty incivility just as the tea party expects their favorite candidates to enact some change to believe in, which will become ugly divisiveness.

If this conspiracy theory were to be proven true as a crafted plan it would represent a giant hoodwink for the president, somehow getting the narrative focused back on sheriff Dupnik's original blood libel while simultaneously getting credit for civility while telling everyone that incivility had absolutely nothing to do with the crime. Vintage Barack. They've gotta do something.

Of course, it could run into trouble the next time one of our resident Arab/Muslims decides to do some damage for the cause--something extremely uncivil. One might think the civil police would be forced to actually blame the terrorist and not Palin but they could always blame the right for blaming the terrorist, then blame Palin. Never misunderestimate a desperate Democrat-media complex.

4 comments:

Right Truth said...

Now we know that the State of the Union speech will be on the same topic, civility. Using that little girl the way he did was disgusting to me.

I saw the entire program, from the introduction to the end, as very odd and disrespectful. The pre-arranged camera placed on Michelle and Giffords' husband when Obama announced that she had "opened her eyes" immediately after the one's visit. Michelle grabs the husband's hands, arm, then grabs him in a big uncomfortable hug.

Debbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com

A.C. McCloud said...

It did, Debbie. It seemed oddly scripted. I thought he spoke some nice words but the cheering was rude and he did nothing to stop it at all. As Laura Ingram said on OR, all it would have taken was "please". That one word would have cooled the students down to respectful levels, but then again, it might have cooled down their enthusiasm, too. Just sayin.

What Obama did was condemn the incivility and keep the civility debate alive. It serves him well, as we're seeing with the MSM, Reid and others.

LA Sunset said...

What could have been a civil union for the beginning, almost became the basis for a civil war.

What I heard of the speech was what we would have expected from a leader, so i cannot get too excited about someone doing their job for the first time, two years into their term.

If he really wants to tone things down, he needs to call out the people on his side who are fomenting this crap. To remove the speck in your brother's eye, you must first get the mote out of your own.

A.C. McCloud said...

If he really wants to tone things down, he needs to call out the people on his side who are fomenting this crap. To remove the speck in your brother's eye, you must first get the mote out of your own.

That's my main criticism as well. By saying we need to be more civil--immediately after the left had an orgasm of incivility to the point of accusing innocent people of being accessories to murder and trashing an entire movement--is weaselly. The picture of him shaking the sheriff's hand and thanking him was enough to convince me he doesn't believe it for a minute. It's all politics, all the time.