THE OBAMA FAN CLUB UPDATE

Anyone catch Mark Mardell’s paean to Obama’s latest bluster? I dare you to listen to this starry-eyed adulation that passes for political reporting. Here’s the odd thing – the markets do not appear to share Mardell’s gushing love-in.

“So clever as to almost sly”

Bookmark the permalink.

6 Responses to THE OBAMA FAN CLUB UPDATE

  1. David Preiser (USA) says:

    I think the blurb there is wrong.  Instead of the President “heralded” the package, it should read that Mardell is the President’s herald.

    My prediction of Mardell’s report from the previous open thread:

    Mark Mardell will not remind you of that (the $535 million Solyndra boondoggle).  He will instead tell you how The Obamessiah sounded presidential, and worked magic or some such drivel.  And he’ll repeat the “roads and bridges and schools” talking point like Paul speaking about his visions to the Corinthians.

    Nearly all there in his opening lines.

    My comment about his blogpost (more or less the same as his Today report), which I’m reposting here because the previous open thread has been pushed off the page:

    Naturally, the BBC US President editor loved the speech, and loved His Jobs Plan For Us.  He didn’t call it “Presidential”, but there was plenty of gushing praise for His performance anyway.  

    Even as Mardell grasps the partisan gamesmanship, he still doesn’t call Him out on it.  If anything, he’s showing respect for the President’s tactics.  The cynicism of a political editor (that’s what he was at Newsnight, and that’s what he is now, regardless of his job title) is suppressed in favor of admiration.  No other politician gets so much praise for partisan hackery.  
     
    As predicted, Mardell did not bust his beloved Obamessiah on the “boondoggle” ruse.  And he will continue to censor that news.  He also refuses to call this what it is: another Stimulus bill.  Instead, he calls it “pretty big”.  And he thinks there was plenty of “meaty detail” when there was actually a distinct absence of detail on how this would be paid for.  He just claimed it would be, and Mardell bought it hook, line, and sinker, the fact of the SuperCommittee seeming not to register in his Beeboid brain.  
     
    And Mardell’s absolute ignorance is on display again:  
     
    This was not of course a new President Obama, but it was a style of speech I have never heard him make before.  
     
    Fired up, yes, but using plain language. The call, if not the response, of a preacher.
     
     
    You can tell Mardell has never set foot in a black church before, and it’s actually astonishing that he never noticed the cadences of a preacher in The Obamessiah’s speechifying during His run for President.  How can anyone take the man seriously when he says the President has never spoken this way before?  Is he that blind? It’s a joke.  
     
    It can only go wrong, he says, if the US public doesn’t want to throw yet more money down the toilet. 
     
    That is the gamble he is taking.  
     
    If he’s wrong, if the majority of Americans think more stimulus money is a waste, that government spending and red tape are the real problem, then a smart speech and a well thought out strategy won’t save him.
     
     
    Mardell means that the political strategy is well thought out, not the actual economic policies, surely.  Or does he?  But as always, if the President doesn’t get His way, it will not be because He had the wrong policies, but because of the stupid public who will spurn Him as the Jews did to Barabus.

       0 likes

  2. Louis Robinson says:

    President Obama was back to his hopey-changey roots last night with a speech full of vague goals and misty objectives. “Under my plan winter is forbidden till December and will exit March the second on the dot. By order, summer lingers through September…” Sorry, wrong king, wrong Camelot.

    But in the equally unreal world of Obamalot, Mark Mardell is drooling again: “There was a fair amount of hefty, meaty detail and this speech was shorn of some of the soaring rhetoric of the past. But it was still fiery and feisty.”

    MEATY DETAIL! Where? COST? Where?

    Mardell adds: “Fired up, yes, but using plain language. The call, if not the response, of a preacher. The chorus line: “You should pass this jobs plan right away.”

    The chorus line, Mark, was there for a purely political purpose: Obama knows the bill is dead on arrival but that’s what he intends. The whole charade was designed so that on the stump he can say – his favorite line – IT WASN’T ME, they didn’t pass my miracle bill, IT’S NOT MY FAULT.

    By the way, Mark, you may not have heard this speech before but before you were promoted and came to the USA, we did:
    Then: “If we act with the urgency and seriousness that this moment requires, I know that we can do it again. That is why I have moved quickly to work with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT PLAN that will immediately jump- start job creation and long-term growth. It’s a plan that represents not just new policy, but a whole new approach to meeting our most urgent challenges. For if we hope to end this crisis, we must end the culture of “anything goes” that helped create it. And this change must begin in Washington. It’s time to trade old habits for a new spirit of responsibility. It is time to finally change the ways of Washington so that we can set a new and better course for America.

    Now “The purpose of the AMERICAN JOBS ACT is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for long-term unemployed…It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled, and give companies confidence that if they invest and if they hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away”.

    What is it that turns BBC US correspondents into Obamatrons? Must be Katty Kay’s cooking? (On second thoughts she probably has a housekeeper/maid/cook.)

    Sorry, “my Site”, but I’m not a great fan of the 50 cent note. We need to beat Obama on his policies and his record.

       0 likes

  3. John Anderson says:

    There has been lots of comment on Obama saying “Pass the Bill” 17 times in his speech.  I liked Mark Steyn;s comment – there is no Bill,  just more waffling,  no details of the spending let alone where the money will come from.  “You need a Bill to pass a Bill – you can’t pass a teleprompter speech,  it’s not in the Constitution”

       0 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Mardell’s own description of his job seems to match mine.  Why does he still have the title of North America editor?

    Come here for America in all its glory – my take on the twist and turns of the presidency, electoral races and life beyond Washington

    Even he admits he’s basicallly the US President editor and little else.

       0 likes