Obama ‘terror’ speech – C-minus at best?

The normal rhetoric that so many, not just limited to Obamiacs, find inspiring (Obamiacs, I suspect, find it intoxicating)?

I’ve never thought Obama was that inspiring of a speaker. Especially today.

I guess, after eight years of Shrub, on both rhetoric and reality, Obama benefits from the soft bigotry of low expectations.

In any case, that rhetoric, whether that good or not, was undercut today by some of the brass tacks (or is that brass knuckles) comments he made at bottom line.

The bottom line starts yesterday, actually, with President Obama’s meeting with leaders of civil liberties organizations. In that meeting, he flat-out rejected the idea of even one torture prosecution, as AG Eric Holder sat in uncomfortable silence. Michael Isikoff notes that he also veritably bristled at being told he was making BushCo policies his own.

It should be no surprise then, that in today’s speech, as Digby notes, Obama also rejected the idea of a special prosecutor or investigation. After all, if you’ve just said you’re not going to prosecute anybody, why do you need a special prosecutor?

At the Washington Post, Dan Froomkin has a full transcript, plus analysis, of the speech. His take:

In some parts of his speech, Obama appeared to be defending actions and even taking positions that didn't live up to his own professed standards.

So even some promises of reality beyond rhetoric are undercut. And, sometimes flimsily:

Obama spoke passionately about his commitment to transparency, but offered up the same lousy and unpersuasive excuses he did last week for his decision to fight the court-ordered release of more photos of prison abuse. In particular, the weight he put on his responsibility not to release information that would inflame our enemies was deeply disturbing.

It makes me think this is why Obama didn’t take the lead in the PR world on the Gitmo detainees issue. He’s trying to have his progressive cake and eat centrist reality too, and now the cake clearly has no clothes.

Back to Isikoff for more on that point:

Another issue raised at the meeting was the idea of a "truth commission" to investigate Bush-era policies. Obama didn't completely reject the idea, two sources said, but instead complained that current congressional investigations into such issues were too time-consuming for key members of his administration. Looking directly at Holder, the president reportedly said the attorney general was already spending too much time dealing with litigation related to Bush-administration policies. “He was worried that his people would be consumed with responding to these things,” said one of those present. “He said his staff was stretched very thin.”

Well, boo-hoo for the Obama Administration. Stop hiring so many czars inside the White House instead of department staff, or else make the czars do more work.
Greenwald a full transcript, plus analysis on the good, the bad, and primarily the ugly.