I listened to Obama’s speech on my drive down to North Carolina for my talk tonight. I thought it was a breathtaking tour de force of dishonesty and tendentiousness for all the reasons covered around here. It was also just weird and annoying. A small gripe: he keeps saying “win the future” like it’s a phrase A) everybody understands and B) everyone has a positive reaction to. Neither is the case.
More substantially, Obama’s speech was just plain reactionary. It was an amazing about-face for a guy who ran in 2008 on a “yes we can” message of fundamentally “transforming” America. Now the philosophical thrust of his approach is that we must not change the America we “grew up with.” Uh, okay. I guess his 2012 slogan will be “Let’s All Go Down With the Ship — Together!”
In 2008 the guy said his chief opponent was “cynicism.” He decried the scare tactics and divisive rhetoric of the past. Now he cynically embraces them in a bitter and dishonest attempt to portray himself as a “centrist.”
Obama’s centrism has only one substantial component: He desperately desires to remain at the center of political life for another term.
"Win the future." Better than: Hey, remember when I promised to reduce the deficit in half by the end of my first term?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHey, on the bright side, his campaign song will be easy to pick - External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDidn't know my country wasn't great until we enacted Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in the 1960's (Know some was enacted before then). I guess all that history of our nation before than just sucked
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJonah,
Like the post. I've always found Win the Future bothersome.
Obviously someone put some thought into it, but more obviously they did not put enough thought into it. Didn't anyone see the comparison and derision the acronym would bring.
Secondly, you're right. He's trying to coin a phrase that doesn't make sense and has so many ambiguous meanings. I'm amazed that more haven't jumped on this and on Team Obama for trying so hard to make a pathetic and nonsense phrase work.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLife imitates the Simpsons.
Future President Lisa: tax increase = "temporary refund adjustment."
Present President Barack: tax increase = "spending reductions in the tax code."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor a guy who's supposed to be so bright he sure uses a lot of hackneyed language.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm still waiting for all the folks -- both left and right -- who were touting the man as some intellectual giant to come out and say what is now painfully obvious: BO is a lost pup in high weeds. Not only that, it's now clear that he's just flat out incompetent. The whole BO show has become laughing stock.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs soon as I hear that slogan, I think of Charlie Sheen. That's not good.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Obama calls for $4 trillion in deficit reduction"
That's all 75% of the voters are going to see or remember. . . the same 75% that think "win the future" is evocative of the very hip "winning!"
Time to start looking at this a different way because the end result is inevitable. So, what happens if EVERY developed nation in the world goes bankrupt? Is it a case of last one out wins? Guy with the biggest weapons wins? First one out wins because they get bailed out by the others? What should be our strategy? I'm pretty sure that "meaningful entitlement reform" is a non-starter.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI honestly do not understand why the President's advisors keep trotting him out to give speech after speech to the public. Enough, please! We get it. We get that the President can give a good if not great speech. But the problem is his speeches are full of fluff, platitude, bogey-man arguments, with little to zero substance. More importantly what Mr. Obama says just do not match what he is doing, sometimes in stark contrast, and the public are beginning to tune him out. Follow the ratings of many of his televised address. The ratings tank big time. He can get away with saying 1 thing, and doing another only so far before people catch on. And people are catching on. That's a terrible thing for the President and the presidency.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBesides the "substance" of the speech, Obama's sneering, looking-down-the-nose posture REALLY bugs me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe changes his words on a daily basis, but his actions remain steadfast and the same.
He might sound different with each tune, but the behavior is consistently spend spend spend, tax tax tax, everything else is behind closed doors.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama's move to the center is interesting because I think, in his case as opposed to Clinton, he will get much weaker. I think he stood a greater chance to get reelected with his hyper leftist agenda because the country at least had a choice. At least 50% of the people were willing to consider and try out socialist government and I think would have given a few years to see how it worked out. Now no one will believe anything he says.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseC'mon, Jonah, how can you say this is an about face, or that he didn't run on cynisism in 2008? It might not have been his official slogan, but he was plenty cynical and reactionary and full of divisive and scary rhetoric. Remember "bitter clingers"? The real difference is how he has let the mask slip over the last two years in the public arena.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFunny, when he said "narrative" it sounded like "future".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseObama likes winning, duh!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou can't understand why Obama keeps using "Win the future" when everyone seems to be mocking it? Come on, Jonah, you know why but are just too kind to say it. The man's enormous ego keeps getting in his way. Remember when Palin mocked "community organizer" (and scored points with the public by doing so) during the campaign? Obama arrogantly doubled down on it, even getting his stoolies to note that Jesus was a community organizer, but Pilate was a governor. It was far and away his worst week of the campaign, making a race of what had been (and would later be) a rout.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe did the same thing with the bowing. Once he was mocked for bowing to a foreign leader, he started bowing to ALL foreign leaders. It's a very unappealing "in your face" arrogance that indicates he's not only incapable of acknowledging he erred, he will go to the other extreme and try to convince everyone that his screw-ups are brilliance that you can't understand. Along those lines, once Palin mocked his "Win the Future" phrase, it ensured that Obama would keep going back to it, until all of us rubes admit how brilliant it is, and how wrong Palin is.
To give you a cultural reference you might appreciate, it's like George Lucas after everyone mocked Jar Jar Binks in the Phantom Menace. Not only did Lucas bring Jar Jar back, against the advice of everyone, he tried to make us believe that Gungans would have made Jar Jar a senator. Of course, all that accomplished was it opened people's eyes that Lucas really is a hack who relies on cool special effects. Perhaps there's a lesson there for Obama, but he certainly won't learn it.
"...we must not change the America we “grew up with.” "
I hate to break it to the president, but this is not the America I grew up with. In the America I grew up with, there was no Medicare; Social Security was still considered supplementary to one's own retirement savings; people didn't typically live well into their 70's, 80's and 90's; our medical insurance did not pay for routine care, we--our parents--did; the family structure in the African-American community hadn't been mortally wounded by the War on Poverty; we hadn't created the permanent under-class that would come gratis of the Great Society; we could honestly say "our children IS learning;" we didn't expect others to subsidize or foot the bill entirely for our higher education, health care, the food on our table, our child care, our housing. Yeah, we had our problems back then, particularly in the area of civil rights, but we did (finally) address them.
No, Mr. President, this is not the America I grew up with and it's not an America I wish to preserve.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWin the Future has replaced Hope and Change. Obama's idea of governing involves crafting market tested slogan's that mean nothing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCut defense, tax the rich, and leverage the ACA cost-saving measures? Sounds like a good start to me and probably sounds good the independents who like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Advantage: Obama.
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