Cycloptichorn wrote:A fine speech by Obama, not too long, good lines.
...
He's a great public speaker. Light-years better then McCain, and Bush couldn't even get through a single paragraph of this speech without flubbing it.
And that's important. Good presidents need to be good speakers; we can all see what happens when they are not.
Cycloptichorn
I agree. He is an unusually gifted and persuasive communicator. However so were Hitler, Napoleon, Huey Long, and even Woodrow Wilson. These skills are important amplifiers of the leader's intentions and basic character -- for good, evil, or merely personal advancement. However, they are by no means a guarantor of beneficial achievement while in power.
History offers us numerous lessons about the risks attendant to judging potential leaders, based on these attributes. Some, like Hitler forcefully and often intelligently pursued truly evil aims. Others, like Wilson, led by their own vanity, used eloquence and their persuasive powers to lead their countries into foolish enterprises that had long-lasting bad effects. Still others, like Long, were merely feckless and exploitive populists who sought only power and personal advancement. An intelligent and eloquent leader is merely more able to advance his/her effect than one less gifted. The nature of that effect is determined by other qualities.
Obama's speech reflects some of his salient weakness as well as his talents as a persuasive communicator. His pandering to European (& German) obsessions about carbon emissions, melting Artic ice and other like distortions of known facts are an example -- a truly wise leader would recognize that the real interests of humanity require a more serious (and scientific) view of the matter. His carefully phrased references to "fair" trade are an example of pandering to the self interest of organized political constituencies in this country and in Europe that oppose free trade, and which needlessly add harm and suffering to developing areas of the world, not to mention to their own citizens as well.
I also found his rather aggressive stance with respect to Afghanistan, juxtaposed with his dismissive references to Iraq rather odd. This has been a feature of his rhetoric for some time, and I find it difficult to rationalize it on any logical basis. I have come to believe this instead is reflective of some political opportunism on his part: the Iraqi intervention is unpopular and, more importantly, it is in its final stages - a dog he can kick with good popular effect, but which won't really require any significant action on his part either way.
Overall, he is a very interesting and charasmatic figure who presents us with a very full measure of the political opportunism and bombast that sadly infects most politicians. I prefer those with more integrity, even at the cost of eloquence and charisma.
I say, DAMN! 
