Pres. Obama gives a speech about the Gulf crisis...

[Drunken Irishman]

And a good deal of talking head half-wits expect him to layout the future of American energy independence.

This is lunacy.

[Arkana]

1. Including, to my disappointment, Keith Olbermann.

I guess Keith is just as susceptible as other talking heads to the frenzy of WHY ISN'T HE DOING MORE-ophobia.

IT WAS 15 MINUTES IN PRIME TIME. YOU CANNOT LAY OUT THE FUTURE OF AMERICA'S ENERGY POLICY IN 15 MINUTES.*







































*Unless you're George W. Bush, in which case it is "Oil company guys and my daddy's good buddy Dick Cheney are gonna sit in a room and dictate American energy policy while I sit on the floor and play Hungry Hungry Hippos."

[WeDidIt]

5. I just put MSNBC on the same block I have Fox on

We'll see what July brings.

I'm done with MSNBC for the rest of the month of June.

[RoyGBiv]

2. It's standard discourse these days ...

They spent the day playing it up, saying that this is what he should talk about, needed to talk about, or was expected to talk about. And when he didn't do what they made up themselves as the issue to be discussed, they criticize him for it.

This has been happening since day #1.

And, as usual, the blogosphere follows right along and still has enough hypocrisy left to turn around and claim they are somehow different from mainstream news ... Well, I guess that's technically true. Instead of making shit up and selling it to the public, the blogosphere takes the shit that has been made up and gets hysterical about it. So, yeah, there's a difference.

One of them is at least creative.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. You damn well know if he had focused on our energy future....

They would've creamed him for not talking enough about the Gulf.

[CBR]

4. The political blogosphere's main purpose is to respond

to and complain about the mainstream media. The most popular blogs are about 90% of blog traffic, the majority of the main political bloggers came from the mainstream media and/or leave the blogosphere for the mainstream media. The users of these blogs are primarily male, make $70,000+, white and well-educated (just like the mainstream media). The main blogs drive mainstream media traffic, they really are a subsidiary.

The media is a sad, sad part of our democracy and it is getting worse. ESPN reporters provide better commentary on politics. The stories ESPN is doing about South Africa are 10x better than those on the lame cable networks.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Part of the problem with the Internet is that more than half of the time

it is being led with its nostril wide open by the Corporate media.....and seems not to want to realize it.

[Jennicut]

6. The speech was to give some info on the oil spill to real people and

to put the idea of energy Independence and clean energy into the heads of people who have been half asleep for years.

[quiet.american]

21. Well said. nt

[Cha]

7. Some got it!

From NBC's Mark Murray

On the Web and Twitter, some of the instant-pundit analysis I've seen of President Obama's address tonight has been critical.

But they must have been watching a different speech than I was.

As we wrote in First Read this morning, Obama's objectives tonight were to demonstrate to the public that his administration is doing everything possible to mitigate the spill’s impact, to reimburse Gulf residents, and to hold BP’s feet to the fire.

In a strong, resolute, and yes optimistic tone he hit all three."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/

Greg Sargeant of TPM weighs in as well:

Greg Sargent: "The intended audience of this speech was a general public wondering what the heck is going on with the spill and what the broader game plan is. This audience didn't need to hear the level of commitment to specific policy prescriptions that we all might have wanted."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/

Edit~ Shout out to Politics Guy for turning me on to these links.

He also reminded that by not talking about the points before hand was how HCR got passed.

[Lindsey]

8. I thought the speech was exactly what it needed to be. n/t

[Hekate]

17. "He also reminded that by not talking about the points before hand was how HCR got passed."

That in itself is an excellent point -- thanks for bringing it up.

Hekate

[quiet.american]

19. Excellent, Cha - thank you. --

You know, after the speech, I turned the channel to watch a Miss Marple Mystery. I pretty much felt that the MSM at large had already made up their minds as to what was going to be said in reaction to the speech. They weren't going to like it; and the dislike would be based on their perpetuation of a lot of misinformation -- such as Tweety on Charlie Rose recently bemoaning that Obama hadn't called in every oil company and commandeered their tankers (!); to Charlie's credit, he asked Tweety -- "would that have been efficient?" -- Tweety: "Well, no, it wouldn't have been efficient, but, but...."

In fact, thousands of tankers had been mobilized by Obama in a way that did not give the current crop of batpoop-crazy Republicans ammunition to whine about a "gub'mint takeover" and mobilized in a way that is contributing to the resolution of the problem. In other words, in an efficient manner. But it didn't make for great "stagecraft."

Glad to see at least there are some thinking people still left amongst the sad spectacle that is the MSM.

[Hamlette]

9. Thanks for this thread, Mr. Irishman. I turned Rachel off after 5 minutes.

she was completely trashing him.

I didn't even dare go to GD here assuming everyone would say the same thing.

I didn't see the speech (work is a bear this week! Our highest week ever in unemployment appeals) and turned on MSNBC only to learn Obama is just like Bush.

Ugh.

[Cha]

10. Lot's of leaders chiming in

about what they thought of the President's speech. You'll have to go to Pro Sense's threads and get some fresh perspective.

I watched the speech on cbs and turned it off immediately afterwards..also Vabrella has a thread that gives reactions from c-span callers who actually like Obama's speech.

So there are different views than just the corpheads, the leftists, etc..the pack of disappointed ones.

[SeattleGirl]

13. I listened to the CSPAN callers for awhile after the speech.

Even some Republican callers were supportive of him. One (a caller named Sharon, I believe) said that other Republicans need to stop toeing the party line, listen to what he has to say and see what he's doing, and support him. :wow:

That tells me that he struck a lot of the right chords with that speech, because it WAS geared toward the populace in general, not to political geeks like us. :)

[Cha]

14. I saw you and Vabrella talking about "Sharon"..

This is an interesting analysis from dotEarth that Turborama linked in another forum..


"Obama Seeking New Ideas on Energy and Climate"

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

President Obama kept the focus of his first Oval Office address on the prime issue at hand — restoring public confidence in his administration’s handling of an unfolding environmental calamity triggered by corporate malfeasance and bureaucratic negligence. He did a workmanlike job, touching all the beats needed in such a speech.

He did not do what some environmental and energy campaigners had hoped — chart a concrete course to a new energy future. There were plenty of allusions to such a future, but — for the most part — he carefully avoided specifics. (To see specifics in an energy speech, have a look at the Oval Office address delivered by former President Jimmy Carter in 1979.)

Obama has left open the prospect of pivoting to energy and climate as a top priority in coming months, but chose (wisely) not to use a moment of national unease, built on a backdrop of unchecked pollution, as a launching pad.

He also signaled that he is leaving open a variety of paths on energy and climate policy and no longer hewing tightly to the idea of a cap and trade system for restricting heat-trapping emissions — which he never wavered from during his campaign. This, too, is wise, given the paralysis in both Congress and international climate-treaty talks over conventional approaches to global warming.

Here’s how Obama described his open-door policy for energy proposals:

I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party –- as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development -– and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development."

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/obama-seeking-new-ideas-on-energy-and-climate/

[quiet.american]

20. That's terrific. nt

[demtenjeep]

12. I started to go there Hamlette and backed out

Just couldn't take it tonight

[Drunken Irishman]

15. You're welcome...

I knew the second I read Olbermann's Tweet right before the speech lambasting Obama for not focusing more on energy he wasn't going to be content.

Sure enough...

I even had to Tweet to him that this was a speech about the Gulf, not about energy independence. But he knows this. He just wants to vent.

Rachel, too, though she wasn't nearly as bad.

And the worst, though, is Chris Matthews because he's always changing. Had Obama spoke about the details and spent sixty minutes telling America his plan about the future of energy in America, Matthews would've been the first to attack Obama for his lecturing style and his disconnect from Americans.

Well you know what? I believe this was one of Obama's best speeches as president where he showed a real connection with the fears and concerns of average Americans.

[Cha]

16. Yeah, I liked it too for

that reason. The more I read from environmentalists and leaders in the Senate on his speech..the more I realize it was a heartfelt strategy speech to get the Climate Bill passed in the Senate.

[Arkana]

18. I heard that Rachel's reaction was actually mild in comparison

to Keith and Chris.