Reviews in for Obama speech: “Incoherent,” “disingenuous,” “nothing new”

[Stephanie]

a couple of different reviews
a lot of links at site

SNIP:

posted at 10:41 am on September 11, 2013 by Ed Morrissey






Earlier today, I wrote a review of President Obama’s speech, which was hardly complimentary. Other reviews make it look positively warm in comparison. Take for instance this long and pointed criticism from John Harris at Politico, which frames the speech as coming from two different Obamas and then concludes with by calling the entire effort “disingenuous”:

Two weeks of zig-zag foreign policy by President Barack Obama — marching to war one moment, clinging desperately to diplomacy the next — culminated Tuesday night, appropriately enough, in a zig-zag address to the nation that did little to clarify what will come next in the Syria crisis but shined a glaring hot light on the debate in the president’s own mind. …

Zag finished the sentence with a jeering reminder: “But chemical weapons were still used by the Assad regime.”

Zig noted that recent diplomatic activity is at least tentatively promising, thanks to “constructive talks that I had with President Putin. The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons. The Assad regime has now admitting that it has these weapons and even said they’d join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits their use.”

This led to perhaps the most disingenuous line uttered by either Zig or Zag in the 16-minute speech, with the president claiming that he had asked Congress to postpone the vote that he earlier requested authorizing use of military force in Syria in order to let the latest diplomatic moves play out. But just a minute earlier he had asserted that a main reason diplomacy was gaining traction was because of the “credible threat of U.S. military action.” Presumably, any further diplomacy would be even more effective if Congress sent a message that it was giving Obama all options to act if the talks fail. The more plausible rationale for congressional delay is that the administration would lose the vote if it took place now.

The Associated Press knocked out the key strut undergirding his call to action:

OBAMA: “We know the Assad regime was responsible…. The facts cannot be denied.”

THE FACTS: The Obama administration has not laid out proof Assad was behind the attack.

The administration has cited satellite imagery and communications intercepts, backed by social media and intelligence reports from sources in Syria, as the basis for blaming the Assad government. But the only evidence the administration has made public is a collection of videos it has verified of the victims. The videos do not demonstrate who launched the attacks.

Administration officials have not shared the satellite imagery they say shows rockets and artillery fire leaving government-held areas and landing in 12 rebel-held neighborhoods outside Damascus where chemical attacks were reported. Nor have they shared transcripts of the Syrian officials allegedly warning units to ready gas masks or discussing how to handle U.N. investigators after it happened.

The White House has declined to explain where it came up with the figure of at least 1,429 dead, including 400 children — a figure far higher than estimates by nongovernmental agencies such as the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has counted only victims identified by name, with a current total of 502. In his remarks, Obama more generally accused Assad’s forces of gassing to death “over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.”

That’s actually what many Americans would have expected last night — an accounting of the proof that the administration claims to have. Even an explanation of how the proof was assembled and how it relates directly to the Syrian military would have been helpful, especially with Obama making a public case for military action on prime time. Members of Congress have been briefed on the proof, but those briefings are convincing more lawmakers to oppose military action than support it, which may be why the White House hasn’t bothered to share more of the evidence with the public.

Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie offers four reasons why the speech failed:

all of it here with comments
Reviews in for Obama speech: ?Incoherent,? ?disingenuous,? ?nothing new? « Hot Air

 

[longknife]

I purposely avoided watching as I knew it would be full of lies and excuses.

Also noted that, instead of the Oval Office like every other president, he made it with imperial hall behind him to show his prestige and power.

What a narcissistic jerk!!!

 

[Katzndogz]

I avoided it too. I've seen clips. How many hours did it take the make up artist to turn a black man orange? If someone wants to be taken seriously it is best to not appear in public as pumpkinhead.