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Obama Does Not Need to
Shout to Loudly Promote Abortion
Part One of Four By Dave Andrusko Good evening. Lots to talk about today. Part Two is an update on the nomination of Elena Kagan and the repudiation in Missouri of ObamaCare. Part Three makes you aware of a new Petition to repeal this monstrosity. Part Four talks about planning your next vacation. And don't miss "National Right to Life News Today" (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org). Randy O'Bannon clears the air about the abortifacient misoprostol. And there is a link to a marvelous set of speeches in addition to still another example of the usefulness of adult stem cells. Please send all of your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. If pro-abortion President Barack Obama is so brilliant--a policy wonk's policy wonk--so charismatic--just this side of JKF--and accomplished so much--what a legislative haul, we're told--how can it be that his approval numbers are dropping like mad? Put another way, how can he not get the credit he so richly deserves for being so wonderful? Well, we would say, for starters, that because he has rammed through highly controversial legislation (in many cases directly at odds with popular opinion), an increasingly disgruntled electorate is simply Obama reaping the whirlwind. But others who are either in his camp or more sympathetic (for other reasons) attribute his vanishing act to his aloofness, emotional distancing, preference for perspiration over inspiration, etc. The "solutions" that are offered can take absurd forms. Writing in Politico today, ("Obama should be more endearing"), Mark J. Rozell and Paul Goldman suggest Obama get a nickname, take his vacations in more public and picturesque places with more photo opportunities than Chicago, and spend more public time with his family. Ominously, they suggest, Obama and his entourage don't understand that the Administration has created an "unnecessary distance between this likable president and his constituents." But the point is, it's all atmospherics, not substance. Writing in the Washington Post today, Michael Gerson, who was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has a different take. For Gerson, it's not the absence of "theatrics" that is bogging down Obama, but a "lack of range." He uses an extended music metaphor to suggest that Obama is a kind of Johnny one-note. "The most effective modern presidents -- a Franklin Roosevelt or a Ronald Reagan -- were able to adopt a number of tones and roles," Gerson writes. "They could express grand national ambition, withering partisan contempt, humorous self-deprecation, tear-jerking sentimentality, patriotic passion -- sometimes all in the same speech. They played an orchestra of arguments and emotions -- blaring trumpets, soft violins, rude tubas." By contrast ,"As president, Obama's rhetorical range runs from lecturing to prickly -- the full gamut from A to C. His speeches are symphonies performed entirely with a tin whistle and an accordion. To switch metaphors, Obama is a pitcher with one pitch. He excels only at explanation. Initially this conveyed a chilly competence. But as the impression of competence has faded, we are left only with coldness." Gerson ends, "Obama's limited rhetorical range raises questions about the content of his deepest beliefs. For this reason among others, the man who doesn't need the love of crowds is gradually losing it." What's interesting for me is that two of the very few times I have seen President Obama emotionally engaged were when he was participating in pickup basketball games, which he obviously loves, and during a lively give-and-take with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, while a candidate. Take that for what it's worth. I haven't a clue what constitutes Obama's "deepest beliefs," but I surely wouldn't conclude from what appears to be an emotional shallowness that his beliefs are (a) superficial, (b) few, or (c) absent. For example, go to http://stoptheabortionagenda.com/ and watch the end of then-candidate Obama's 1997 speech to PPFA's political arm in which he answers a query about health care "reform." Yes, indeed, Obama assures his audience, "reproductive care" is at "the center and the heart of the plan that I propose." Is he waving his arms manically, indulging in flights of rhetorical fancy, or raising the roof tops? Nope. He is calmly outlining the highlights (for us the chilling downside) of his health care plan and then praising PPFA as a safe haven for college girls who are looking for the kind of services the nation's larger abortion provider can provide. They might be more "comfortable" there, he adds. In other words, Obama delivers this very important speech (to borrow from Gerson) not with "an orchestra of arguments and emotions -- blaring trumpets, soft violins, rude tubas," but entirely "with a tin whistle and an accordion." But (to switch metaphors) while that immediately audience might have wanted more red meat, this bland diet serves Obama's larger purpose perfectly. The most out-of-the mainstream proposals go down so smoothly. This preternaturally calm, non-threatening, professorial guy can't possibly be the most pro-abortion President in the 37 years since Roe v. Wade was unleashed, right? He couldn't be envisioning health care "reform" whose goal is extending abortion's deadly tentacles in every direction, right? Wrong! |