Posted on 06/05/2009 11:08:50 PM PDT by POWinCA
This morning I watched Obama join Angela Merkel and Elie Wiesel speaking at Buchenwald, one of the notorious WWII concentration camps.
True to form, Obama stumbled through a carefully worded speech someone else had written for him. It was entirely uninspiring - layer upon layer of petty platitudes, truisms, and vague references intended to appeal to Jewish/Israeli audiences but not offend muslim feelings. In particular, he aimed a comment about holocaust denial at an unnamed person, who just happens to be the leader of Iran. The fact that Obama didn't have the courage to call evil by its true name is telling of how his words were wasted.
Obama was uneasy without his teleprompter and he stuttered as he always does when he's saying things he doesn't really believe. He fumbled to turn the pages of his note cards in the wind. It was an awful speech which the leftist media didn't waste time applauding.
On his first major trip abroad, he had some major difficulties tripping over foreign words and names. Will someone please buy Obama a Rosetta Stone CD before his next foreign visit!
First, he correctly referred to Angel Merkel as "Kanzler", the German word for Chancellor, but then for some inexplicable reason he backtracked and called her "Chancellor" in English. Then, he pronounces her last name like it would be said in English.
One should wonder why he takes such great pains to pronounce Sotomayor in proper Spanish yet he pronounces the name of the German leader Merkel like it rhymes with Urkel. Is he having flashbacks from nicknames his classmates called him?
Immediately following that, he butchers the name of Dr. Volkhard Knigge. Barack, Volkhard is pronounced like "Folk Heart", not "Fuck Hard". Knigge is not pronounced "Chinnaga." Yes, it's Kanzler instead of Chancellor, but not "Chinnaga" for Knigge. Knigge is pronounced very similar to "nigga" but preceded with a slight guttural sound. You can handle that, can't you?
Then he pronounces the last name of his "good friend" Elie Wiesel as Wee ZELL. At least he didn't call him Weasel. Let me give you a hint Barack: Wiesel is pronounced just like diesel or weasel, except it begins with a V sound.
After the ceremony, Barack was overheard shouting in frustration, "K instead of Ch, F instead of V, V instead of W, T instead of D. People named 'Fuck Hard Nigga'. What's up with these damned Krauts?"
For the Flavor Aid guzzlers who actually think Obama is a great speech maker, you should closely listen to and watch both speeches one after the other. You'll see the stark contrast between an empty suit and a polished, professional speaker. Have some fun and count all the verbalized pauses and hesitating gestures:
When Obama was done tripping over his tongue, Elie Wiesel took the podium. He silently leaned forward, clasped his hands together as if in prayer, and calmly told the sad story of his father's death. Wiesel had no notes. Wiesel did not sound as if he had a prepared speech. He was speaking from the heart. A non-native English speaker, he had no difficulty pronouncing his words. He paused frequently out of genuine emotion and for dramatic effect, not from a loss of words. There wasn't a single verbalized pause in his entire speech:
When a person speaks from deep knowledge, feelings, and experiences, they neither need a teleprompter or a prepared speech. They don't say "uh" and "um" and "and" every four words like Obama does.
Obama stood mostly stiff and still behind Wiesel with his head lowered and his face locked in a somber expression. You could see his jaw tightening as if he were trying to think of some sad personal thoughts to conjure a tear to roll down his cheek for the cameras.
Here is the transcript of the speeches, but one line launched out at me:
I've known about this place since I was a boy, hearing stories about my great uncle, who was a very young man serving in World War II. He was part of the 89th Infantry Division, the first Americans to reach a concentration camp. They liberated Ohrdruf, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps.If you'll recall, just a week ago Obama bragged about this very same uncle liberating Auschwitz when someone asked about his lack of military service.
Again, we hear him stutter and turn away as he struggles with an uncomfortable question. You can tell when he's saying something he believes when his air of confidence returns, but then he falls right back into stuttering when he tries to bring his sorry excuse to a conclusion.
As we learned during the campaign, Obama never served in the military. He had friends...no, parents of friends who served in the military. He thought about joining the military some time between lines of coke, but never bothered to put this serious, carefully considered decision anywhere in his two autobiographies.
Just before his trip to Europe we learned that he had an uncle who served in the military and liberated Auschwitz. Republicans, who actually know something about history, reminded him that Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. Obama literally called up his uncle to get his story straight and had Robert Gibbs present his official excuse for ignorance.
Obama's uncle was quite candid about what he thought of his nephew's embarrassing mistake:
“This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons. Perhaps his visit also has something to do with improving his standing with (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel. She gave him a hard time during his campaign and also afterwards.”
Waht the h-— was that flaming hypocrite doing at Buchenwald? Research? Getting ideas?
We know for an absolute fact that it’s not because he disapproves of anything that went on there.
Reading about him is like listening to an endless car wreck in a thick fogbank - car, after car, after car, after car, after car, after car...
Obama’s visit to the former Nazi prison camp is probably to allow him to get some ideas for his American internment camps....
Michelle Malkin wrote a very positive book about the US internment camps for Japanese-Americans in WWII. Maybe Obama could, as always in the spirit of bipartisanship, tap Malkin as the internment czar.
I am always disappointed when I hear people call him a great orator. To me, he is not. His cadence is almost sing-song, his language is far from stirring and borders on the banal, and the rotation of his head from from one side to the other with that Mussolini like jut to his chin is almost comical.
A disgrace to the country and the world.
***I am always disappointed when I hear people call him a great orator. To me, he is not. His cadence is almost sing-song,...***
And his deliberate pause between clauses takes your attention from the meaning of his sentences.
Anybody else notice how he pronounced the word “Koran” in his Cairo speech? He sure takes great pains there to pronounce it with an Arabic inflection.
This is the same guy who pronounces Wasilla, Alaska, as “Wasilly”.
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