Plan B Forum

Obama needs to quit hitting that stinking podium...

ETA; If he keeps heading in this direction there is no way he'll loose.

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He was giving a speech live announcing the pullout of some troops from Afghanistan, plus a long, rambling, rah-rah, let's get the country working again bit.

Gob wrote:? ? ? ? ? ?

Sorry

What Scoot said.

It really does torque my jaw when he bangs on the podium like that...

Did he remove one of his shoes?

After all the crap he's taken about not appearing to be emotional enough (like through the BP fiasco, etc.), you're actually going to try to paint him as being that hysterical? Ma fammi il piacere...

I find this format when a President delivers a report to the nation, (and that's what an address like this really is...a "report" not a "speech") where the President stands with seemingly nothing front of him and with the cavernous hallway background to be distracting and in a way diminishing. It makes it look that they just ran out to say a few words before they get back to something they'd rather be doing...

I believe it was George W. Bush who first started doing this on a regular basis, and I really don't understand why. Prior to him, most Presidents, most of the time, made this sort of address seated from their desk in the Oval Office; Bush and Obama have used this setting only very rarely...

I think the atmospherics of that setting are far better...It lends a gravitas and sense of seriousness and focus that this end of the hallway bit doesn't. I think it's much more effective when the purpose is for the nation's leader to speak directly to the nation's people.

I don't care about the setting; I'm just delighted by the announcement. It's high time to end our longest and arguably most unproductive 'war'. Ok, wait - second most unproductive (Vietnam). (Or third, if you count the WOD.)

Bring them home. A dear friend's husband has been in Afghanistan off and on for years while watching his kids grow up via emails, Facebook & Skype. The price of this war cannot be rationalized and can never be overcome.