You wrote that none of Obama’s speeches are directed at thinking people. So are you saying that Obama impresses thinking people without even trying, or that anyone who is impressed by his speeches is by definition not a thinking person?

The third option is that you don’t really think Obama never directs his speeches at thinking people, i.e. that your original statement isn’t true.

By the way, I love how the election and the positive response to the health care speech are evidence that voters don’t think, while Obama’s falling poll numbers are evidence that they do.

No, I’m saying they’re not thinking when they’re too busy swooning.

You would prefer to write things that aren’t true, and that you yourself don’t actually believe, and not be called on them?

I wrote nothing that “wasn’t true.” It’s a matter of opinion. I value mine much more highly than I do yours. If you don’t like reading it, no one forces you to come here.

What a weaselly response. First you attack a huge swath of people as being not thinkers, and then fall back to basically saying that they aren’t thinking when they disagree with you.

Why do you insist on coming here and picking nits at occasional mild hyperbole

You would prefer to write things that aren’t true, and that you yourself don’t actually believe, and not be called on them? Sounds like an invitation to even more sloppiness.

Not when it comes to Barack Obama.

And none of those people said that they were “thinking people” speeches — just that they were politically effective. Do you understand the difference? Perhaps you’re not a thinking person, either.

Why do you insist on coming here and picking nits at occasional mild hyperbole, and generally beclowning yourself? Don’t you have a life?

Rand concurs: That’s true of all of his speeches.

Jim Fallows called it “Once again, a first-rate speech”, and wrote:

There will come a time when Barack Obama cannot pull himself out of pinch with a big speech. And obviously we don’t know how this debate will turn out yet. But he hasn’t fallen short on the big-speech front yet.

So I suppose Jim Fallows isn’t a thinking person?

Mikey Kaus wrote, of the health care speech: Expectations: Low! … Expectations: Exceeded.

Mikey a non-thinker?

Charles Murray wrote, of Obama’s March speech on race:

Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I’m concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we’re used to from our pols….

Charles Murray, another non-thinking person?

William Kristol, on Fox News after Obama’s 2008 DNC convention speech:

Barack Obama faced very high expectations tonight. And honestly, I think he met them. I honestly think he exceeded them. It was a very well crafted speech, around the theme of America’s promise.

Bill Kristol — another non-thinker?

Presumably Obama was referring to things like:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care.

Obama quote 2: Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.

Both Palin’s quote and Obama’s second quote are “scary” in the sense that they describe negative possible futures, but that’s where the similarity ends. Palin’s scary future has no connection to any proposal before Congress — it is as much a work of imagination as “Brave New World.” Obama, by contrast, merely predicts that if we do nothing, the things that are happening today will continue to happen.

One of these predictions is reliable and relevant, and therefore should inform the debate over the bills before Congress; the other is both unreliable and irrelevant, and is therefore a distraction from that debate.

Is this distinction somehow lost on Hinderaker and Rand?

Who, if I read the numbers right, tend to be older voters who are already recipients of government paid for healthcare…

How does his attitude and tone help with the

I don’t think they saw the speech the way you do for the most part, at least for the actual independents and undecided. Then again, you were pretty adament that people wouldn’t be voting for him in the general election either…

You cannot insert government into the most deeply personal decisions people make with a mere 60% approval — or even 70% — and still claim you live in a land of liberty.

Tosh Carl. Utter, complete unpurified tosh.

It happens all the time. That’s the whole point of representative government so you can get things done, and sometimes, you have to get things done over the protests of certain people because they’re the right thing to do.

This is the right thing to do.

There’s also no point in passing legislation, Dave. You cannot insert government into the most deeply personal decisions people make with a mere 60% approval — or even 70% — and still claim you live in a land of liberty. You are not. You have degenerated into a fascist tyranny. A tyranny supported (at least for the moment) by the majority (as most of them start of being anyway), but a tyranny nonetheless.

And that would be a dreadful mistake, one that could destroy the social contract, the live and let live spirit that allows 100% of the people to resign themselves to the government elected by 51% of the people. That way lies madness, revolution, ruin.

They don’t. That’s nonsense. At least for likely voters.

Let’s be honest Rand, is there a single thing that he could say that included any type of universal coverage that you would agree with under any circumstance?

Of course not. But I’m not who we are discussing. There are people on the fence. How does his attitude and tone help with them?

I think the cold hard truth of it is there is a certain fraction of people who won’t be “brought” over to his point of view no matter what he says, nor what he does.

So should he worry about bringing them over? Or should be ensure that he solidifies the opinion of the 70 odd percent of the population who support reform and a public option…

Let’s be honest Rand, is there a single thing that he could say that included any type of universal coverage that you would agree with under any circumstance?

If the answer is no, then there’s no point in a debate really.