Wednesday - January 21, 2009

President for life, Sheik Barak Hussein Obama calls stop to military trials at Gitmo.

Radio news early today reports President (For Life ) Barak Obama has signed his first order as president in the order to stop military tribunals at Guantanamo.

A Bush spokesman interviewed said that when the decision to use Guantanamo was made, nobody at the time thought it would raise the ire or concern of people half way round the world or at home.  It was seen at the time as a solution, and as a situation where we were at war and these folks did not come under civil jurisdiction.  It has become he went on, an albatross around America’s neck and has given the USA an international black eye.” He also said that finding a place for the prisoners was easier said then done and he predicts a political battle over them.  Where he asks, are you going to try them and house them.  There will be people who will say, “Not in our back yard.” And so the battle will start.

Then there is another unexpected issue.  The human rights issue raised by the left so often.
The countries these folks come from are “not known for having very good reputations where civil rights are concerned.” So will the new govt. (USA) deport any to those countries?  And what about countries that will refuse to take those who might be freed?

This is gonna get a mite sticky. 

Meanwhile, the coverage and opinions on the new president, peace be upon him, continues unabated.  (peiper one sarcastic right wing sob today. just like yesterday and the day before)

Barack Obama inauguration: Bloggers and analysts divided over speech
Some praised it as inspirational, brilliant and poetic. Others found it unremarkable, workmanlike, even condescending.

By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
Last Updated: 8:21AM GMT 21 Jan 2009

While none questioned the historical significance of Tuesday’s inauguration - most described the occasion as both momentous and moving - political commentators were sharply divided on President Barack Obama’s hugely anticipated inaugural address.

“A disappointing hodgepodge,” was the view of New Republic writer John B. Judis. He deemed Barack Obama’s speech “unusually abstract” and occupying a “netherworld between inspiring oratory and political argument.

“It was well-delivered, but it consisted of a hodgepodge of themes, injunctions, and applause lines that did not speak directly to the crisis that the country faces.”

Writing for the same publication, however, Walter Shapiro, political columnist and former White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, was moved to proclaim Mr Obama the “poet-in-chief” for the speech’s “striking phrases and sudden bursts of imagery”.

“President Obama reminded the nation that here was a man who wrote himself into his job,” Mr Shapiro declared, although he added “my guess is that Obama’s address was a little too cerebral, a little too reflective of recent White House history to reach the standard of greatness.”

In an 18-minute address delivered before a shivering, expectant crowd of over a million, Mr Obama pledged to rally his nation to “a new era of responsibility” and show the world the US is “ready to lead once more”.

America’s 44th - and first black - president, known for his rhetorical skill and powerful speeches, outlined the grave challenges facing the country. But he stressed they could be met, declaring that “starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin the work of remaking America”.

Debate about where the speech would rank alongside history’s most memorable inaugural addresses began immediately: Did it lack the kind of lofty rhetoric necessary to guarantee immortality? Had the enormous expectations surrounding the address simply proved too great?

John Dickerson, writing on Slate.com, declared it “a good speech but not a soaring one” that lacked “the kind of personal speechmaking Obama was so good at during the campaign.”

CNN analysts Jeffrey Toobin was also underwhelmed.

“I thought that this was a speech with a lot of ideas but no theme and most importantly, this was a speech without a single memorable phrase,” said Toobin.

“We remember inaugural addresses by ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ (Franklin D Roosevelt); ‘Ask not what your country can do for you’ (John F Kennedy). Where is anything comparable in this speech? I’m afraid this is likely to join the vast majority of inaugural addresses which are quickly forgotten.”

Arianna Huffington, writing in the Huffington Post, said the new president delivered a “solemn reality check” in which he effectively told America it was “time to grow up”.

Calling it “Obama’s sober sermon on the steps”, she said the speech was “a warning bell” but “ultimately optimistic”.

“There was something very powerful about watching this relatively young man, one of the youngest to ever hold the highest office in the land, telling the people of America to grow up.”

This part of the speech riled some, however.

“We…need no condescension from the President of the United States telling us that we ought to act our age, not our shoe size,” wrote Pejman Yousefzadeh, a conservative blogger, on politico.com.

“This inaugural address had a whole host of faults. It fell well below expectations for its inability to connect with the issues of the day, its apparent characteristic of having been written by committee, its vagueness and generalities, and the fact that it puzzled more than it enlightened.”

Historian Michael S Roth, however, could not have disagreed more, declaring the speech “brilliant, deeply felt” and containing “echoes of the great speeches of the past”.

“It was a dignified, thoughtful speech - worthy of the great orator who delivered it and appropriate to our perilous times,” he wrote on Politico.com.

Michael Gerson, in the Washington Post, meanwhile found many of Mr Obama’s words to be platitudes but the speech’s content more compelling.

He said many had “expected the speech to be rhetorically masterful but perhaps ideologically shallow. Instead, we heard a speech that was rhetorically flat and substantively interesting. On his first day in office, President Obama has managed to surprise.”

The New York Times assembled a panel of former speech writers to presidents Carter, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W Bush. They judged the address everything from mixed to marvellous.

But in an editorial the paper declared that Mr Obama’s speech, though lacking the “soaring language” of Presidents Franklin D Roosevelt or John F Kennedy, gave the crowd “the clarity and the respect for which all Americans have hungered.”

THE ONE

I’m still left asking the very same question without any answer. 
Why the hell does the world care one little bit about OUR internal security matters as regards Guantanamo?  Why is it any of their damn business?
And why should any American give a flip about world opinion as regards Gitmo?
Or any other personal home issue.

Posted by peiper     on 01/21/2009 at 05:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Government • Homeland-Security • International • Obama, The One •  
• Comments (13) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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