Obama needs a new speech writer...

Film buffs and fans of the deliciously cheesy but addictive Independence Day with Will Smith will remember that inspiring monologue by Bill Pullman, playing the American President, as he beckoned his audience to sign up to die in the fight against annihilation by the big blue aliens. It moved me.

Remember the scene? One starry night as the survivors from the last alien attack huddled together in a makeshift refugee camp, devastated, demoralized and with no hope for tomorrow, they had no will to live. President Bill, with his sleeves rolled up like the cute guy next door, climbs onto the wing of a dust crop aircraft whose pilot is surely destined for posthumous greatness. He grabs a loudspeaker. It crackles unexpectedly. He has their attention. He speaks. The nation is at war, the world is war, the human race is about to be made extinct. Could there be a worse fate than that?

He thought not and they agreed. They were inspired. They were scared but they stood their ground. They fought for their homes, their planet, for their children and for life. It was beautiful.

Evidently Barack agrees. Or, perhaps his speech writer does for every speech that I now hear him make he seems to be stuck in that perpetual tone of our-American-family-needs-to-huddle-to-fight-big-bad-old-men-in-pyjamas-for-life-or-death. Some one flicked that switch and it broke, call the handyman coz they can’t turn it off.

I couldn’t hear out all of Obama’s last speech on Afghanistan announcing the troops being pulled back because it had a bad effect on me. So I thought I would read it instead. It had a bad effect on my IPad. I’m now typing this on my mac.

Forget content or rationale for going into Afghanistan or leaving it. I’m not discussing that (for now) - lets just talk about the rhetoric. Not the what, but the how of his speech…

It begins with a reference to Pearl Harbour, addresses his “fellow Americans” who belong to the “American family” and closes with “May God bless our troops.  And may God bless the United States of America.”. Also worth quoting is “Like generations before, we must embrace America’s singular role in the course of human events.  But we must be as pragmatic as we are passionate; as strategic as we are resolute.  When threatened, we must respond with force –- but when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.  When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own.”

Perhaps I am out of touch with what the average American wants to hear but is amazes me to consider there are people who buy into this stuff. I admit, when Obama became president, I was happy. There was a part of me along with the Nobel Prize committee that saw hope. But I was stupid. The world is not a better place. I had unreasonable expectations of his presidency and that’s not his fault but speeches like this are.

I happened to be in NY when I caught the airing of that Oprah episode where she met up with the Obamas. The leader of free world and a nation at multiple wars with an economy going bust was hanging out on a couch for a TV chat show. Fine. It wasn’t just any chat show. It was the in-kind payment to Oprah in return for endorsing the Black man over the white woman. How can that use of his time be acceptable?

Despite its flaws and high share of buffoons, the UK government gives me so much more of a sense of reality. Perhaps it is to do with the size of the country which keeps the White House so separated from regular people. A few days demonstration outside Westminster is all it takes to highlight an issue in London. Write to your MP or MEP and they will write back. The UK government does hear from people and there is some sense of feedback.

But that’s not all. The US government as an institution is built above the people. Every element of it and how it represents itself exudes superiority with a tag that says “precious”. And who really is in control? Comparing it even to the defunct leadership of Brown there was even then that sense that the government works for the people (even if my taxes say otherwise).  

Those of us who have ever watched the West Wing, love it. I only saw part of the first series and I get the attraction. But that’s on TV, not reality. Perhaps his fellow Americans have watched so much reality TV that they can’t quite tell the difference any more…

Read the speech here

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Unfortunately the situation has not improved...but he sure looks good as he says it!

SOTU 2012:

Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those 50 stars and those 13 stripes. No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together. This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we are joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.