Obama Speech Prep

"This film is pro-humanity and anti-bad things."
- Monty Python

Here is a detailed review and analysis of Obama's speech tonight. Before we even hear it.

His plans can be found here: in "A Blue Print For Change", by Barack Obama.

You can download it here.


And now, on to the analysis of his speech that we've not yet heard...

[Obama's major points of his future speech are in bold. Analysis in regular font.]

Do you want 4 more years of Bush? McCain is 4 More Years of Bush.
Wait, I thought The Media love McCain, because he's a 'maverick" and has thwarted many of Bush's plans throughout the years?
McCain is his own man, and his first four years will be his own first four years, not a continuation of anything.

The Republicans are going to try to scare you into thinking I'm the wrong guy, because of previous associations and because I don't look like all those presidents on those dollar bills.
The republicans don't have to scare anybody, unless you mean they shouldn't be allowed to talk about Obama's political formation vis-a-vis his associations, his total lack of experience ("Community Organzier"???), and his too-hard-to-take-it-all-in public gaffes and reversals on important issues. Even Obama himself said that at least one critical issue is "above his paygrade".

And race - Obama is the only one who is race-baiting with his "don't look like all the presidents on those dollar bills" statement. This is at once a racial slur on present-day republicans and a slur on our nation's history.

I will get us out of Iraq.
" He will end the war responsibly by bringing our troops home within 16 months" - pg. 51.

Too late - a timetable for that is already being worked out, now that the Iraqis themselves can assert the ability to fight, after we had a chance to train them. The scary thing is, Obama would've have even started a pullout when we were at a crucial and perilous point in the war - and he would have gladly lost it by letting the terrorists know we'd be out soon.

I have no idea what to do about Russia invading a sovereign democracy in Georgia.
Neither does President Bush, but no doubt Obama's ideals of talking, subtlety, and nuance will work things out.


I will stop corporate lobbyists, except in the case that they are close relatives of my administration.

“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists
that their days of setting the agenda in
Washington are over. I have done more than
any other candidate in this race to take on
lobbyists – and won. They have not funded my
campaign, they will not get a job in my White
House, and they will not drown out the voices
of the American people when I am president.” - pg. 3

Wow, this issue is so important to Barack Obama, that he starts out his entire policy plan with it - page 3!

The only problem is, his pick for VP has a son who is a majorly powerful lobbyist, who of course never discusses his work with his father. Never. Never even thought of doing that.

See ABC's story here.

I promise $1 Trillion in new spending.

A few trillion here, a few trillion there, pretty soon we're talking about real money.


I promise to make the wealthiest 1% of Americans, who earn 21% of all income but only pay 40% of all taxes, pay more.

"President Bush’s policies of giving tax breaks for the wealthy will cost the nation over $2.3 trillion by the time they expire in 2009. " - pg. 29

"Cost" the nation? Wow, that's a complete inversion of reality - it didn't "cost" the nation anything. It saved $2.3 trillion from being taken out of the economy. When Obama raises those taxes, it will certainly "cost" a lot from those who are paying it. Is it better to have $2.3 trillion spent directly in the economy by individuals and businesses, or is it better to funnel that to huge, never-ending bureaucracies that will get budget increases automatically every year, ensuring they'll spend ever penny they get? Is it better to have $2.3 trillion to expand the government, or $2.3 trillion to be invested in new technologies, better efficiency, pay worker's salaries, create more jobs, and everything else that happens with private capital?

I promise more happiness for everyone, except those who are creating and sustaining non-government jobs in this economy.
"We’ll require employers to provide seven paid sick days each year. We’ll enforce laws that prohibit caregiver discrimination." - pg. 35

A tax raise on all businesses, but mostly hurting the small businesses which make up most of corporate America and thus our economy.
Where does Obama think the free money will come from? Will more money fall out of the sky, allowing businesses to give more paid time off to their employees? Will their sales and profits automatically and commensurately increase to offset this? No.
Obama proves here that he's the candidate of changing things for the worse. He doesn't trust companies to come up with their own benefit packages to attract employees and he doesn't trust a person's ability to choose the job with the benefits they can get at the pay they want, given their skills.
Nope, trying to ensure the outcome and not the opportunity is what Obama is trying to do, and that is not change - it's standard Democratic policy.

I promise to to legalize all those "undocumented workers", so that they'll forevermore increase the membership and power of the Democratic Party.

On page 29, Obama all but promises to stop immigration enforcement - "immigration raids are ineffective." He'll then legalize all immigrants now, with no real penalties.

Illegals immigrants would "pay a fine, learn English, and ...opportunity to become citizens. "


The evils of the world will disappear once I can talk to those involved.
"Obama will turn the page on the Bush-Cheney diplomacy of not talking to countries that we don’t like. " - pg. 51

Either Obama is completely ignorant of foreign policy issues, or he is outright lying.
The Bush administration has been negotiating with nearly ALL countries that it "doesn't like".
"Doesn't like" is an immature simplification, isn't it? I mean, if you're talking about a country of Persians whose leadership is driven by radical religious ideology, whose relationship to the Arab world is at once adversarial and cooperative, who produce a lot of oil and can threaten the major shipping lanes of the world's oil supply, who have repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, and who are obtaining nuclear and military technology from non-democratic major world powers - "doesn't like" really doesn't fully describe the issue, does it? It doesn't matter if Bush and Cheney "like" them or not. Iran is a violent regime with violent intentions - and the Bush administration has spent a lot of effort to deal with this - all while not dignifying a state sponsor of terrorism by talking with him directly, with "no pre-conditions".

Obama has not and will not address what's actually being done, and what he will do differently.
"Talking" is not doing anything differently.


"Obama will launch the most aggressive diplomatic effort in recent American history." - pg. 51

Liberals always think that bad events happen around the world simply because they were not there personally to talk to the other side.

The 2008 budget request for the State Department was $36.2 BILLION dollars, with a few more billion thrown on top to cover "urgent" events.
What does Obama think the State Dept. is doing? Is he pretending that we aren't constantly dealing with Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia, you name it??
It's arrogance to assume nothing is currently being done, and that all that is needed is for Obama to talk to, say, Iran.

And what will he do when talking fails?

The Clinton administration talked and talked to North Korea. The talking ended in an agreement where North Korea agreed to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons and the Clinton administration would give them nuclear technology so they could have nuclear power. I'm not making that up. If a country has a nuclear power plant, all they need is enriched uranium, and they have nuclear bombs.
After all the talking and hand shakes, Clinton left office, and the North Koreans openly mocked the U.S., saying that they had lied all along and were always pursuing nuclear weapons. Now, they have them. And now the North Koreans are making a lot of money by giving this technology to the Syrians (state sponsors of terrorism), and who knows else.
But no, all that's needed is for Mr. Obama to talk to our enemies, who couldn't care less about talking, and only desire to pursue their own dark agendas.

I will solve all healthcare problems by making it 'universal'.

"Obama will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of his first term in office." - pg. 7

Obama has not read "Vision of the Anointed" by Thomas Sowell, and does not intuitively get that solving big problems is always a matter of trade-offs, and not simply a matter of finding a "solution".

Obama's answer to healthcare is not "change" at all - in fact, it looks like every other takeover of healthcare offered by the Democrats, starting a decade and a half ago with the Clinton administration.

We can look at universal coverage in other countries that have it, and see what the results are. Critical surgeries can't be scheduled for months or longer - even for something as important as removing cancer. Specialists can't be scheduled for months in advance.

How can Americans manage healthcare costs, when we don't even know the cost?
Laser eye surgery prices have come way down, and are very affordable. Why? Why has this area of healthcare not ballooned out of control? Because it's not covered by insurance typically, which means people pay for it themselves, and are thus engaged in making a trade-off between price and quality and necessity.
Where else in healthcare can you shop around for prices? Say you need cancer surgery - what price is it to get it from the best doctor versus someone who is just OK? Can one shop around for the best price on check-ups?

No. The reason: single-payer insurance, where everyone gets every benefit for a low co-pay, while the insurer is the only one who knows the real price. Low prices unconnected to the real value of a resource mean artificially high demand. Example - got a cold? Go see your doctor and take up a half-hour of his time. Your cost: $30 (the co-pay). Would you still have made that appointment if you had to pay the real cost, say, $150? Probably not. You'd wait to see if it was a normal cold or if it turned out to be something serious. Multiply this effect by millions of people, and you have a supply and demand equation that is way out of whack.

We've got to be able to make price-versus-quality-of-life decisions with healthcare, and universal coverage and single, government-paid healthcare only make that situation worse. That means prices will still spiral out of control, but the government will "pay" for it.
Except that the government has no money. It only has your money. Again, a trade-off: who's better at spending your money - you or some person in a distant office, totally unconnected to your well being, who is not paid for performance, so he can spend how much he likes on whatever he likes, with the guarantee that his budget will increase every year at 5% forever?

Obama: Hope you can only hope for. Change that will make things worse. A speech we can't wait to hear.