Obama’s “optimal” remark…
…was most definitely not optimal.
And yet that sort of gaffe isn’t the sort of thing that especially interests me (your mileage may differ). Everyone already ought to be aware that he’s got a cold attitude, and that he’s made a series of egregious moves in connection with Benghazi—including his entire mideastern foreign policy, for starters.
I just can’t get excited about his Spockian technospeak; it doesn’t really add much information to what is already out there.
“Please proceed, Governor” was the tip off when I was watching the debate. Up until then, Romney and Obama were interrupting and jostling against each other. With that “Please proceed,” Obama gives Romney the floor. Something smelled off. When Crowley chimed in waving some paper, it gave the appearance of a kangaroo court.
Here’s the problem, neo…
Obviously the media is weighted, right? If Romney said something similar, the MSM would be all over him.
Obama, over the last 4 years has said and done dozens and dozens of things that would put him at a sub-30% approval rating, yet the MSM doesn’t cover it or the issue is too nuanced and requires too much attention to detail to be understood on a mass scale.
Obama’s “optimal” comment isn’t a big deal to those of us who have been paying attention and no what this man is all about. BUT (!!!) the comment IS the kind of thing that has the potential to cut through to the so-called low information undecided on-the-fence voters.
Fast and Furious? Solyndra? Even the Libya cover-up to some extent. Forget it. It’s all a big messy swirl to some people. But matters of the human touch, heart, odd gaffes (that aren’t really gaffes), these are the things that get to some people.
I think it’s weird that some people will hear “spreading the wealth around is good for everybody” and it flies over their head. But somehow “optimal” sounds insensitive enough that it might get undecideds to scratch their heads.
At this point, it’s all about accumulating little points in the cultural media wherever you can. And this optimal comment is one of those opportunities.
It may not add to the information that is already out there, but it may, cumulated, insinuate more than a cold nature. A radical’s continually dismissive attitude to life lost might lead to a question that might have been posed to the recently departed Red utopian Eric Hobsbawm — just how many lives may be sacrificed in pursuit of a fundamental transformation?
One word summaries have their place.
I’m still wondering how crazy Joe’s remark about our troops wounded in Iran got a pass.
His “not optimal” remark stuck out because it is more in line with his behavior – first, not sending in assistance for 12+ hours after the attack started (after sleeping on it), and then jetting off to a Vegas fundraiser after the missing were confirmed dead. It felt a lot more like a Kinsley gaffe, where his unintentionally showed his cold, uncaring side.
This is a nice companion piece, by the way, and a rather… pointed commentary on “optimal”:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220241/Barack-Obama-Benghazi-attack-Mother-diplomat-criticises-Presidents-optimal-comment.html
In comparison to Romney’s “women in binders” verbal infelicity, I think Obama’s “4 American deaths is not optimal” sounds much worse – and the subject at hand is much more serious – nothing more serious than the deaths of four Americans. But, the Left is going after Romney’s “women in binders” with a lot of faux outrage and trying to make it terribly revealing of Romney’s mindset. Phooey, calling American deaths “suboptimal” is much more insensitive and revealing.
The left has nothing else to go with, Judith.
People ought not to be surprised at the verbiage used by Obama over the Libyan murders. It’s coming from a man who favors protecting late term abortions and is all part of his–and most extreme leftists’–callousness toward human life in general.
Not just his ‘not optimal’ remark, the rest was no better. To paraphrase-Government’s big, and sometimes things break, and when they do we find the problem and it needs to be fixed”~~~So all ya’ll, these deaths aren’t optimal, and we have a little breakdown…but no biggie-they’re just bumps in the road..
Not acceptable. There’s a story in the Bible concerning a King and a finger writing on a wall a message saying he’d been ‘found wanting’. Mr Obama? The writings on the wall, and you’ve been found wanting.
There is something else the people are fed up with: lack of substance and record replaced with angry anti-Romney attack. It’s been a while since I’ve checked the Yahoo reply section. It’s a mixed bag, but in this case, I was shocked, pleasantly shocked that is. I have never seen such a huge change to an overall and overwhelmingly disgust. Every comment is anti-Obama. The headline is “Obama mocks rivals “Romnesia” on key issues.” The disgust at Yahoo’s evident bias is barely less than the disgust at Obama.
http://tinyurl.com/8q7h3cc
random thoughts says, “It’s coming from a man who favors protecting late term abortions and is all part of his—and most extreme leftists’—callousness toward human life in general.”
It is even more extreme, it is coming from a man who voted (Illinois legislature) to sanction killing late term babies who survived an abortion. It does not get more cold or callous or evil than this!
katielee says, “So all ya’ll, these deaths aren’t optimal, and we have a little breakdown…but no biggie-they’re just bumps in the road..”
Fold optimal five ways and stick optimal where the sun does not shine on BHO basking on the beach in Hawaii. The mannish boy is going down for the count come 11/6. He will do much damage as a quadriplegic lame duck; but finally after 4 tortuous years we will be rid of his vile influence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fk2prKnYnI
Just like the context of the Rose Garden speech indicates that Obama was not calling the Benghazi incident a “terrorist attack,” Obama’s answer, in the context of Stewart’s question, was not describing the deaths of 4 Americans as “not optimal.”
I know I suffer from hoof in mouth disease and I have a certain sympathy for the candidates in the gotcha atmosphere surrounding them. I suspect these two examples are indicative of the kind of verbal shortcut each candidate tends to use use at work, but which sound awful in public. As an American who has lived in a parliamentary democracy for many years I can’t help but notice how the the verbal experience English or Australian politicians have to develop makes most US candidates look like, well, verbal doofusses. Imagine a Paul Ryan letting loose on the unsustainability of our present course like the UK’s Nigel Farage does at the European Parliament. Here he is in action in a short YouTube: http://bit.ly/K1g0Y5
“Not photo-optimal,” I’d call it. Why? Because it tallies with the comment he once made before U.S. troops, that they make a good photo-op.
Superficiality is this American president’s entirety. You peel this onion of a man, you find no core inside. His rise to the top position of the free world is nothing short of astounding. What Sunny Black said about the disinformative role of the MSM–the key to understanding these surreal four years.