Gee, some people aren’t very impressed with the president’s speech:
Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan’s plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. “Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America,” he said, supposedly pitting “children with autism or Down’s syndrome” against “every millionaire and billionaire in our society.” The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.
Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which “starts,” he said, “by being honest about what’s causing our deficit.” The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.
And those standards are pretty low.
Roger Simon isn’t surprised that “President Boring” put Joe Biden (and others) to sleep:
I think it was a natural response. Biden and the woman were bored stiff. Barack Obama has become the most tedious president in my lifetime. He is like those college professors whose classes you did everything you could to avoid but, if you had to go, sat as far back as possible in order to get a little shut-eye yourself.
But what is it about Obama that makes him so boring? I submit it is something quite simple — he has nothing to say.
And he says it so tendentiously and mendaciously.
Clive Crook says it was a waste of breath. Though that doesn’t distinguish it from any of the president’s other speeches. And Charles K. says that it was a disgrace. I’m not going to argue with that. Again, though, it’s true of this presidency in general. We got what we voted for. Well, at least those of us who voted for him.
[Late morning update]
Cometh the hour, punteth the man.
[Afternoon update]
Paul Ryan responds:
Two months ago, President Obama submitted a budget for fiscal 2012 that did not deal with the major sources of government spending while calling for much higher taxes on American businesses and families. This budget was widely panned as lacking seriousness.
Now comes a deficit speech that doesn’t even rise to the level of a plan. Missing was a credible way to curb out-of-control spending. Instead, the president called for greater reliance on government price controls, which would strictly limit the health-care options of current seniors while failing to control costs. The president would couple this approach with $1 trillion in tax increases, which would destroy jobs and hurt the economy.
We cannot accept an approach that starts from the premise that ever-higher levels of spending and taxes represent America’s new normal.
[Later afternoon update]
“Why did Barack Obama give this appalling speech?”
He has a plan. The president has a political campaign.