Obama Press Conference Fails To Deliver

Before my weekly journey to run Saturday errands, I happened across the same press conference Mustang did. Which is a funny thing to say, if you saw it - press conferences for Obama are not built in the mold of the traditional press conferences. I say this because the press conference was a bit of a joke, for someone who has become some living breathing human panacea, capable of drawing forth great emotion and packing stadiums after free rock concerts. So far there's only one short clip on You Tube.

I also say this because the professionalism of delivery was severely lacking in both emotion and substance. Of course you had to know that the media hammered him with powder puffs. But even with the softball questions, Obama failed to persuade in any form of a convincing style.

There were no cheering adoring crowds, no national political punditry types holding the evening news casts from it, and no real reason to cover it other than it would have made Obama look like the greenhorn he really is. Also missing were the carefully crafted speeches rolling off of the teleprompter.

He looked a bit dazed at times, he tapped danced around questions, and generally had a significant amount of trouble, with very little exerted pressure from his adoring fans in the media. In short, he appeared to be on the defensive for most of it and almost constantly in a personal search for the right words.

The only news network to carry much of it was Fox. CNN didn't have it. I didn't check MSNBC, I figured they would rather cover an old real life murder mystery from some repeat NBC Dateline show, from ten years ago. In one of the tenser moments (if you want to call it that), a reporter had asked about the Obama dollar bill, and McCain's charge of him playing the race card. Here's what followed:



In this (the only clip I can find right now), the first thing he says is, "I don't come out of central casting when it comes to presidential races". This is the part he hopes the non-thinkers will miss, because you will have a hard time convincing any of them that Mark Alexander, David Axelrod, and others aren't having daily huddles with him (coaching him, and carrying him through this role).

Then, if that's not enough, he complains about the negativity in the criticism leveled towards him by McCain and those that are skeptical at the very least. But from what I see and hear, this criticism is fair game and I'll tell you why. The man has no foreign policy experience (unless you count a tour of speeches). He has no record of doing anything at the federal level and he had a pretty leftist agenda in the Illinois State Senate. If we were interviewing for a private sector job, we'd want to observe, study, and analyze our candidates with all prudence and circumspection, wouldn't we? Why should this be any different? Why should we not be able to look at the positives versus the negatives?

McCain questions his experience, Obama says this is negative. McCain questions his positions, Obama says it's negative. McCain questions his daily campaign remarks, Obama cries negative. Do you see the pattern? Do you see the objective? You are not allowed to criticize him, without it being deemed negative. This is the very crux of his campaign.

He started out the darling of the Left, because his past ties were from the Left. His inner circle (prior to the beginning this current traveling snake oil sales team) has consisted of people that have (at very least) sported a strong dislike for the country and the system that governs it. This is fair criticism. Since we have nothing else to judge his actions on, why would it not be?

John McCain and those of us who are not fooled by the cult of personality have every every right to ask tough questions. We have the right to hear the answers.

I cannot help it if Obama has none. He doesn't. I can't help it if he isn't charismatic during press conferences. He isn't. I cannot help it if his past affiliations creep into the debate. They do, and for good reason. When you are an upstart to the national scene who hasn't led anything of any real importance, this is all there is to evaluate. (Personally, I don't think he could lead a group of hungry homeless people to a buffet table. But that's another post.)

No folks, words are great. But past actions and affiliations are far more important. It's easier to believe the words, when one has something solid to back up his/her words. Promising the world to the masses, is easy. Promises are like pie crust, easy made and easy broken. And I refuse to buy into this empty emotionalism and conference room politics, when they are based on weak and faulty doctrines.

Besides this, Obama hasn't showed us anything up to this point. We are right to talk about it and ponder it. We are right to base our decisions on the entire resume of any given candidate, for better or worse. He has the right to say it's negative if he wishes. But if I were hiring someone and there were negatives like this in their work history, I'd not cast it aside just because I felt desperate for change.

Things are screwed up, most of us all agree on this. But letting someone that has no tested mettle at this point in time is unwise and foolish, at best.