Reactions: Obama's Speechifying

◼ The president stumbled four times over the past week. - National Review Online
◼ OBAMA: AFTER 2 1/2 YEARS, A HAS-BEEN - Powerline

The President was the Obama we have all come to expect: hyper-partisan and divisive, to a degree I have never seen in any other chief executive. And I go back to Eisenhower. His talk was full of transparent lies. And Obama is an economic illiterate, which has resulted in most Americans writing him off as a failure. A plurality of Americans regard him as a terrible president. So one wonders whether anyone was listening to him tonight with an open mind.

Obama’s performance was, in my view, awful. Why? Because, as the president has revealed himself to be inept on one issue after another, the lingering question has always been: is he, nevertheless, some sort of political genius? After all, his one undoubted talent is fundraising; he is the greatest money-machine in the history of American politics.

But tonight–and this is the point I really want to make–Obama dispelled any idea that lurking behind his incompetence on matters of policy and administration is a gleam of political shrewdness

◼ House speaker says Obama won't get 'blank check' - AP

◼ Two speeches, two visions - Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post

President Obama’s decision to give a speech tonight was proof that things have not gone well for him. He threw (another) tantrum in the Friday news conference, he turned down a bipartisan deal presented to him Sunday and thereby took himself out of the limelight. Tonight’s speech was not intended to “solve” the impasse but to make sure Obama would get credit if a deal is struck and avoid blame if it is not.

The speech itself was part panic attack, part platitudes and a whole lot of class warfare (corporate jets! hedge fund managers!). He stood awkwardly at the East Room podium, minus any press corps. He began with a ponderous recap of the budget train wreck, and then described his grand bargain (light on the details, because, of course, he never put a concrete plan out there). He ridiculed the Republican plan...

◼ Chris Matthews: Obama ‘Shouldn’t Have Gone On National TV To Give A Political Address’ - Mediaite

Chris Matthews argued that he considered using primetime television space for a political debate a bit of an error, and after going into detail on how the aesthetics of Speaker John Boehner’s speech were off, lamented that President Obama had gone on TV to give that sort of speech.

Prompted by O’Donnell’s question about the President’s decision to use primetime space for what he admitted was a debate and not a new development, Matthews noted that “there’s some concern in the media, our media, about that,” because the President “openly stated that this is a debate” and by Republicans being given a direct response, “it did put the President almost on an equal level.”