Krauthammer Pans Obama: "He Gave One of the Emptiest Speeches I've Ever Heard"

◼ Charles Krauthammer completely panned Obama’s lackluster effort tonight at the DNC. - Jim Hoft/Gateway Pundit

“I was stunned. This is a man who gave one of the great speeches of our time in 2004. And he gave one of the emptiest speeches I’ve ever heard on a national stage… There was nothing in it… At least Romney had a 5 point plan… He pulls number out of a hat… He doesn’t say how he’s going to get from A to B. It’s a vision. I have a vision of America where there’s no disease and everybody owns a private airplane. But, unless I tell you how we get there I’ve said nothing.”

◼ Carville: 'Not the best speech of convention'

Initial reactions to President Barack Obama's convention speech...
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow: A big, big speech.
CNN's James Carville: Probably not the best speech of this convention....
Noel Sheppard: Watching CNN right now. @AndersonCooper looks like someone died. Very unhappy panel.

◼ Obama: A Pedestrian and Overconfident Speech - Michael Tomasky /Daily Beast

◼ No sale: Obama can’t obscure gap between his record and his rhetoric - By U-T San Diego Editorial Board

Americans are used to reality shows. Yet for the last four days, we’ve seen an alternate-reality show, courtesy of the Democratic convention – one that depicted the worst president in U.S. history as a compassionate genius held back from even more staggering feats only by the evil people in the other party.

But last night, when Barack Obama took center stage in Charlotte, N.C., and had to make the case either that his first term was far better than most people thought or that his second term would be far better than his first, he couldn’t do it. The gap between his record of the past four years and his typically soaring rhetoric was just too big. His failure to succeed with his past promises made his new promises impossible to swallow.

◼ Obama Phones It In For DNC Finale - Kevin Drum/Mother Jones

...all of these riffs were just that: short collections of platitudes with no real meat behind them and no promise of what a second term might bring.

◼ The Democrats' Soft Extremism - Obama is out of ideas, and Clinton's speech was unworthy of him. - Peggy Noonan/Wall St. Journal

Barack Obama is deeply overexposed and often boring. He never seems to be saying what he's thinking. His speech Thursday was weirdly anticlimactic. There's too much buildup, the crowd was tired, it all felt flat. He was somber, and his message was essentially banal: We've done better than you think. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

There were many straw men. There were phrases like "the shadow of a shuttered steel mill," which he considers writerly. But they sound empty and practiced now, like something you've heard in a commercial or an advertising campaign.

It was stale and empty. He's out of juice.

◼ I'm shocked it was this bad - Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post
◼ Obama at the DNC: That’s it? - Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post

It would have been better had he not spoken. Seriously. Like an aging rock star, President Obama, in a downsized venue, with downsized proposal and spewing downsized rhetoric only reminded us how far he has fallen from the heady days of 2008. The man, the agenda and the aura are faint imitations of their 2008 incarnations. And most importantly, he put forth an agenda that was entirely, and obviously, lacking, one that didn’t begin to match the demands of our time.

◼ The trouble with Obama's rhetoric: It bites the man who reads it - John Kass/Chicago Tribune

◼ Obama fell flat - Politico