I normally liked Obama's speaking style a lot, but today, I thought he was not forceful enough, as for Boehner, it was a terrible speech and obviously a bunch of lies. Anyway, Kevin Drum described what I thought very well.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/07/obama-vs-boehner-pair-nothingburgers
Obama vs. Boehner: A Pair of Nothingburgers
What a discouraging pair of speeches. I expected Obama to stick with his Mr. Reasonable routine, so that wasn't a surprise. But I was surprised that he didn't do a better job of making a case for his own side. It just seemed....limp.I mean, this is not exactly a rousing call to action:
I’m asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your Member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message.
And when he switched to describing the Republican plan, he didn't do much better. I really don't think he managed to paint the "cuts only" alternative as all that dire sounding, and I don't think he managed to explain the tea party instansigence very well either. I could figure out what he meant because I follow this stuff, but I'm not sure someone who was coming into this cold could have.
And Boehner! What kind of gall does it take to describe last week's House bill as "bipartisan"? How many Dems voted for it? Three? Four? And he repeated this nonsense multiple times. This was accompanied by claims that it was Obama who created this whole crisis in the first place, that healthcare reform added to the deficit, and that he gave it his all to find something, anything, that Obama could agree to. Ugh. The rest was just boilerplate.