Thursday, October 22, 2020

Nice Job


By the time most people read this post, the second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden will have presumably begun and ended and the following will be old news. Still, as someone who has criticized Barack Obama hundreds of times- even for speeches he has given, which is close to illegal- credit has to be given where credit is due.

The address the former President delivered on Wednesday in Philadelphia was not well-focused and flitted from topic to topic. He missed a few topics. It would have been impressive for the ex-President to explain the threat threat President Trump poses to international stability with his frequent attacks on allies and campaign to undermine the Transatlantic Alliance. The danger Donald Trump poses to the air, oceans, consumers, workers and others with his obsession with deregulating industry is a critical issue Obama avoided.

But few people are interested in the former, the latter never has much interested Obama, and there is a democracy to be sustained, which the ex-President fully recognizes. Further, he invoked the word "Trump" eight times and in the past, both he and Joe Biden have done so sparingly. And he did get off a great line when he stated

We know that he continues to do business with China because he’s got a secret Chinese bank account. How is that possible? How is that possible? A secret Chinese bank account. Listen, can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection. You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that? They would’ve called me Beijing Barry.



There is no certainty this speech and any others Barack Obama deliver will help the Biden-Harris campaign.  During the last presidential campaign, polls showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and on election eve, Mr. and Mrs. Obama were joined by Bruce Springsteen for a massive rally in Philadelphia. The next day, Clinton narrowly lost in the critical state.

Overall, the speech was impressive and history usually does not repeat itself. If it does this time, we're in for a lot of trouble in the USA, and not only for the next four years.

 

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