NYC Letter: Soaring Oratory IX -- Posies

Day 930 of CHOPE

Friday night the full faith and credit of the United States was downgraded by Standard & Poor's, a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO). The one sure thing in world finance is now on a par with Belgium. Over the weekend the president brooded on the situation. Today Mr. Obama re-emerged to address the nation (and attend two fundraisers).

The 1:00P unscheduled address became a 1:30P rescheduled address. At 1:52P the president found the podium. "Good afternoon, everybody," Mr. Obama began. The president had pronounced this a "good" afternoon. Simple but brilliant. [Pause.] Had he only stopped on that bright note.

OBAMA’S HORRIFYINGLY BAD SPEECH
by Jennifer Rubin

OP-ED August 8, 2011 (WaPo) - He was a half hour late. His head turned from side to side as if he were attending a tennis match. He practically never looked in the camera, as if he were averting our gaze. And those were the strong parts of President Obama’s disastrous speech.

... Obama had all weekend and the best he could come up with was a reiteration of his plea for a "balanced" approach [scil., tax hikes] to deficit control. That’s right. ... All he can do is promise to raise taxes.

... It is what he has been saying for what seems like forever. He has nothing new.

He did say one indisputably true thing: The downgrade was more a comment on our political dysfunction than on our ability to repay our debts. That is the dysfunction that he has presided over. That is the paralysis he perpetuated by insisting for months on tax increases. He was describing his own disastrous tenure as president.

This illuminated Obama’s predicament — devoid of ideas, bitter about political opposition and completely in over his head. If the election were held today, I bet he’d lose. By a lot.

He's already losing to generic "Republican candidate", 47% to 39%.

It was a bit like a slow-motion car crash. After a while, one stopped listening to the blather and simply watched the stock ticker go down and down. And down some more.

DOW SKIDS 600,
WORST DAY SINCE CREDIT CRISIS

August 8, 2011 (CNBC) - The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 634.76 points, or 5.55 percent, to finish at 10,809.85, well below the psychologically-significant 11,000 mark. The move marks the blue-chip index's biggest point and percent drop since Dec. 1, 2008.

The S&P 500 plummeted 79.92 points, or 6.66 percent, to close at 1,119.46, its lowest close since Sept. 10, 2010.

Nasdaq sank 174.72 points, or 6.90 percent, to end at 2,357.69, its lowest close since October 4, 2010.

The plunge began around 2:00P, about the time of Mr. Obama's speech. A coincidence.

By the end of the speech, Mr. Obama made it pretty clear he wasn't to blame. The whole world is a mess. Economic disruptions in Europe, Japan, and the Middle East, earthquakes, spikes in oil prices, slowdowns in other parts of the world. But there was this posy:

Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country.

Who needs an NRSRO recognized in law when Mr. Obama just assigned America a triple A rating in perpetuity.

Oh. "One last thing." Terrible about the helicopter crash in Afghanistan. "Thank you very much."

CHOPE.

Same old same-old.