Barack Obama Monotones

Contributed by Erick Erickson (redstate.com)

Barack Obama again waited for Rush Limbaugh to go on vacation before addressing the public from the Oval Office. Like the last speech, this speech was, for three-quarters of it, dry and monotone — President Spock addressing the nation without emotion.

Finally, at the end, Spockobama gave in to emotion and showed some in talking about the troops.

Throughout though, the speech was rather pathetic. Not since February of 2009 has Barack Obama talked in detail about Iraq and his Oval Office speech tonight indicates this may be the last we ever hear of Iraq from him. He couldn’t wait to move on to topics more to his liking.

He praised George W. Bush — but curiously set up his praise in a way to make himself look better. He then turned almost as quickly to the economy and blamed George Bush for the economic picture. At least tonight, however, he was kind enough not to use Bush’s name directly.

Changing subjects again, this speech about Iraq went off on domestic spending initiatives, then made sure the Taliban knew we definitely would be departing Afghanistan on time so they could sit back and relax a few more months before taking back over.

In short, it was a pathetic mash-up of schizophrenic campaign themes built up as an “ Iraq speech” so the networks would carry it in full. The speech could be boiled down to “I love the troops. Cough. Iraq . Cough. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Hey, let’s go spend some more money!!!! Cough. Iraq . Cough.”