The morning after: What did Obama and Jindal really tell us?

Well, members of Congress sure won't have to drop their pants and skirts off for pressing at the dry cleaners this morning.

They were hardly sitting down at all on the House benches during President Obama's speech to a joint session Tuesday night. Maybe just pop some Aleve for their aching applauded-out hands.

It was a historic night with the nation's first African American president giving his first national speech inside the Capitol. In the words of a former TV comic, he sure is a good talker.

It wasn't technically a State of the Union speech, more of a Fate of the Union speech. But it had all the familiar dramatic elements: someone suffering from cancer, an unknown but earnest regular person plucked from obscurity to sit with the first lady. Sully was there for moustachioed gravitas. And the pathetic congressional sycophants angling for on-camera handshakes or autographs with the Main Man.

Obama's skills were on full display in that magnificent setting (talk about history!). For weeks he's been telling us how bad things are in the economy. Now that he's got his first $787.2-billion spending bill passed and signed and the markets have tanked, it was time for some modulation. No matter how warranted, Americans don't like too much pessimism, which is why Jimmy Carter started building Habitat houses four years earlier than he had planned.

So last night, as signaled by the speech excerpt the White House released early to help shape the cable TV chatter, Obama was saying: Things are really bad. But we're gonna come out of this OK, stronger, in fact.

A few minor muffs aside, the speech was well written and well delivered, public communications skills being an essential but often underrated ingredient in political leadership in the 24-hour news cycle. It was a skill the diffident then-President Bush never worked to master. His eyes jerked from one TelePrompter to the other, fearful of missing a word, and sending accidental signals of insincerity and not knowing his material: I'm reading this word for word.

Obama read his lines word for word too. But he did so flawlessly, turning his head smoothly side ...

...to side, all the while reading off the TelePrompter but allowing his adoring congressional majority and many others to totally forget it.

In that sense Obama is like fellow Democrat Bill Clinton without the lower lip-biting affectation to show thoughtfulness. The smooth, convincing delivery conveying empathy, connection, sincerity. However, except for "I get it!", there were few memorable speech lines to live in history. Or rally rallies in coming weeks.

And certainly no recipe provided for how in this known world one country's government can pay for tax cuts for 95% of Americans, completely reform the entire healthcare system to cover everyone, develop an entire new energy system and technology, save the U.S. automobile industry, rebuild the country's crumbling transportation infrastructure as well as the entire educational system, stop high school dropouts, conquer cancer, save one-million-plus homeowners from foreclosure while bolstering the entire banking industry, protect national security by paying the military more, create "or save" 3.5 million new jobs, cut the trillion-dollar deficit in half in 46 months and one week, plus fight (and, who knows, maybe even not lose) a guerrilla war in a desolate mountainous region where no foreigners have "won" since Alexander.

And speaking of someone who spoke a lot about Iraq to become president, Obama had but a single sentence on that place in his speech: "We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war."

Compared with all those ambitious ambitions and ideas, poor, not-so-old Bobby Jindal was toast before he walked down that lonely hallway in the governor's residence in Baton Rouge as the Republican responder. It was a hopeless assignment even if the personable, popular 37-year-old wasn't a rookie on the national stage.

When will the PR handlers of these responders -- whatever their party -- realize that coming from a historic, effusive, applauding Capitol Hill gang to one guy/gal talking alone to a staring camera and a gaggle of bored TV technicians earning evening overtime doesn't work? You need an audience, real live, breathing supporters who laugh at the laugh lines and applaud at the applause lines just like they do for the real thing up in D.C.

Even a dummy like David Letterman knows that.

With his moment on stage, Jindal's adrenalin was clearly flowing and he ripped through the first half of his remarks like a parent eager to finish the bedtime story because "The Sopranos" rerun is coming on downstairs.

He was reciting. Rapidly. Not speaking. The speech read much better than it looked. (The texts of both, btw, are here for Obama and over here for Jindal.)

On paper or the screen, Jindal made important fundamental differentiations with Obama's federal-focused relief. "The strength of America is not found in its government," the governor asserted. "It's found in its people."

Jindal's is a compelling story, too. The son of an immigrant of color who brought his family from an impoverished faraway land to America awed by the openness, opportunity and abundance of the famous place. And the son went to school and worked hard and got elected to Congress and has two cute children and then returned home to right his chronically corrupt state as a reformer in public service. Does any of this sound familiar yet?

"Americans can do anything!" Jindal's father told him one day in the grocery store. And the son remembers.

For those who didn't hang around to watch the response, Jindal got, well, killed. (He might want to drop the teeny Bobby moniker to return to his childhood name of Piyush, just as Barry Obama became Barack.) On one level Jindal's speech is a measure of how thin the Republican bench is; except for maybe Mitt Romney, there aren't many other experienced, recognizable folks to call up from the triple-A leagues.

And that is a little-noticed but sad part of the Bush legacy for Republicans and a democracy that needs a healthy opposition as a political check.

No. 43 chose to cling to Dick Cheney as his VP in 2004 instead of bringing in a fresh heir apparent for four years of on-the-job White House training and building national name recognition before assuming GOP leadership. For that fateful decision, Republicans and the country will be paying the price now for several more years, at least.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos, from top: President Obama speaks to a joint session of Congress. Credit: Evan Vucci / Associated Press. Gov. Bobby Jindal delivers the GOP response. Credit: Associated Press. Obama makes a point during his address. Credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images.

Comments

[Jannette Pollakis]

I was sitting here reading the Presidents speech when all of a sudden it was replaced by "the morning after". I wanted to print the Presidents speech out so could you please tell me how I can get that speech please.

Thank you

[lisa]

That's just what I was thinking. Hope of the Republican party? Poor guy barely comes up to Obama's shoulders. I guess the future of the Republican party is, they don't have one.

[chris]

Pisyh Jindal is a joke. for all the people who had issues with whether president Obama was a Muslim (not sure why his faith should matter) or wheter he was even American enough, I hope they have the same concerns about old Piysh. Clearly the repubs are prepping to trot out their version of Barak Obama, but just like the octuplet Mom he may look the part but he is nothing but a cheap knockoff of the ral thing.

[Kenny]

Why is Louisiana even being offered any stimulus money? Didn't they suck us dry after Katrina? Also, Jindal either doesn't support or doesn't understand the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Consitution. See the birth certificate case involving Judge Zainey. Jindal is spending state taxpayer money to fight a losing battle just because he doesn't want to honor a New York adoption decree. This type of case has been settled in several Federal circuits and it's clear that adoption decrees fall under the Full Faith and Credit Clause. So, if he doesn't want to follow the US Constitution then by all means he shouldn't get a dime of federal money. None of the stimulus pacakge and none of the regular money allocated to states. Give it all back, Bobby!

[Haitiana4Obama]

President Obama may have delivered once of his most poignant speeches ever last night. I initially tuned in with high expectations, and some trepidation that our leader would not be able to meet them. Thankfully he proved me wrong, the message that President Obama delivered was one which we all desperately needed. Our president was candid, to the point, and inspiration by turns. I was left with more hope and determination to succedeed then even during the campaign...I know we have a leader at the head of the government, finally. President Obama continues to uphold our values, while showing respect to the ideals of others, he has single handedly restored the proper use of the English language in the eyes of American's if not the world at large, and has shown a dim, but present light is at the end of this tunnel of distrust and dispair. If I was doubting the probability of us fully recovering from this economic crisis as a unified nation, the audicity of hope has been reignited in my heart for months to come. Thank you Mr. President, I believe in you, in myself, and in this great nation!!!

[plebis]

More audacious "soaring rhetoric" from Barry. Boy, can he read a teleprompter! And, that is all you can say about our empty suit prez.
Other than the fact that his cabinet apparently can't remember to pay the income taxes they owe.
Chicagoland criminality meets arrogant idiocy.

[Windfall]

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Private Gomer Pyle couldn’t have said it any better.

The Fibpotus speaks. The market goes south.

Haven’t we seen this movie before? How about a You Tube showing a graph of the Dow tanking superimposed over the fawning media’s B reel of smiling, blinking, tearing up Democrats? That would be a damn sight more honest than the doctored Fox News video the ObaMarxists were circulating yesterday.

From No momentum for Wall Street:

Stocks expected to open lower as Obama's speech appears unable to sustain previous session's rally.

http://tinyurl.com/af4lxa

If only Private Gomer Pyle had been the one addressing Congress last night.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Over 98 percent of all Americans still have a job!

This downturn, spurned by the irresponsible affirmative action lending practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack, is not now and never will be anything like the Great Depression because:

We’re not going to repeat the mistake of Smoot-Hawley.

We will neither threaten nor pursue protectionist measures in any form.

We’re not going to burden present and future generations with trillions of dollars of debt so that we can funnel money to our political allies and cronies.

We’re not going to prop up automakers that average an unsustainable $2,500 per car more in labor costs than the German and Japanese-managed companies that also manufacture cars in the United States.

We’re not going to bail out irresponsible real estate speculators.

We will guarantee the cash accounts of innocent depositors but we’re not going to sink trillions of dollars into investment banks even if they are owned and managed by prominent Democrats.

And, above all, we are not going to raise anyone’s tax rate and further, to create a stable, predictable operating environment for investors, we are not only going to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, we are going to eliminate the double taxation of dividends as well as the capital gains tax on all investments held for more than 18 months.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

If the Fibpotus had uttered these words last night, the DOW would gain 5,000 points today… at least.

Instead…

Well, you have your Marxist Fibpotus.

Now, you’re getting your Marxist economics lesson.

[PauvrePapillon]

Fibpotus meet Karl Benz.

How can it be that the Fibpotus doesn’t even know that Karl Benz invented the automobile? Inspires confidence, doesn’t he? He’s going to save the auto industry but he doesn’t even know the most basic history of the automobile industry. In the third line of his inaugural address he claims he is the 44th person to take the oath of office of the President of the United States. Doesn’t even know his basic U.S. history. This guy is an empty suit, an absolute moron. Was his reference to 57 states an early senior moment or did he really think there were 57 states? You have to wonder. How did this fool ever become president? Oh, I remember. It was time for a Fibpotus and he butted into the front of the line.

http://tinyurl.com/cxezlr

The market was up today but then Tuesday night the Fibpotus opens his mouth and the overnights are down again. If you want to see the markets go up 1,000 points, all we need is for the Fibpotus to shut up for a month. The economy is not now and never has been as bad as advertised. That’s the real reason the Marxists had to fast track their massive pork package through Congress. They’re afraid that the economy will recover before they can take credit for it. Too bad they won’t stand up and take credit for crashing the whole finance system in the first place.

From the NYTimes September 1999:

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

http://tinyurl.com/3jdn9e

Must be a Democrat. Can’t count. Can’t keep his lies straight. Makes arguments devoid of any logical relationship between the facts and his conclusions. Assumes facts not in evidence. Regularly states falsehoods as if they were facts.

Hey, who needs Saul Alinsky?

I just gave you Five New Rules for Radicals.

[R.I.P. GOP 2008]

Our president Barak Obama informed us what it is going to take to recover from this Republican orchestrated catastrophy.

Jindal was passing wind.

[Carlos Saenz]

Interesting, but not surprised to read your very liberal bias. Governor Jindal spoke for us conservatives. The strength of our country IS NOT in our government, but in its people. I say this as a man who immigrated from Colombia in 1960. By the way, I recently cancelled my L.A. Times subscription because of your ALWAYS present liberal bias. You folks should think about the true meaning of honest journalism.

[ESTELLA DAVIS]

MR. PRESIDENT OBAMA DOES NOT HAVE THE PENCHANT FOR LOWER LIP-BITING, BUT, HE DOES HAVE A LOT OF ILLUSTRATIVE HAND MOVEMENT. ESPECIALLY WITH HIS FOREFINGER AND HIS THUMB. I THINK IT MAY BE A WAY OF INDICATING THAT HE REALLY IS A FAITHFUL AS WELL AS HOPEFUL POLITICIAN. MY MOTHER, 92, HAS SIX DAUGHTERS, RANGING IN AGE FROM 54 TO 70 AT THIS TIME. THERE IS A LOT OF BORROWING THIS AND USING THAT, AS USUAL, SO IT IS NOT AN UNUSUAL THING THAT I WOULD BORROW ONE OF MY MOM'S BLACK HAND BAGS FOR SUNDAY SERVICE. WHEN I EMPTIED ALL MY MOM'S BELONGING OUT OF HER PURSE, I NOTICED IN THE LITTLE COIN POCKET ZIPPERED SECTION OF THE PURSE THAT CONTAINED LITTLE TINY MUSTARD SEEDS. SO, I DID NOT EMPTY THE SEEDS OUT OF THE ZIPPERED COMPARTMENT. I LEFT THE SEEDS IN THE PURSE. I THOUGHT ABOUT IT AND IT OCCURED TO ME THAT I NEVER THOUGHT OF FAITH FROM THE ACTUAL SEED, ITSELF, ALWAYS IN AN ABSTRACT WAY SO I LEFT THE SEEDS IN THE PURSE AND I CONTINUED TO USED THE BAG. WHENEVER I SEE THE PRESIDENT SPEAK AND HE WILL ALWAYS USE HIS FOREFINGER AND THUMB TO GESTURE A POINT OR EMPHASIZE A POINT AS IF HE IS ACTUALLY HOLDING THE TINY SEED BETWEEN HIS FOREFINGER AND HIS THUMB TO MAKE THE POINT, I ALWAYS THINK OF THE SEEDS IN MY MOM'S HAND BAG WHEN HE MAKES HIS SPEACHES FOR THIS REASON. FAITH, AS A MUSTARD SEED OR SEED FAITH, LITERALLY, FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE LITTLE TINY SEED BETWEEN BARACK'S FOREFINGER AND HIS THUMB. HE HAS VERY SLENDER FINGERS MADE FOR A STEINWAY AND NOT A OVAL OFFICE, I WOULD SAY. THE "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE" FANFARE MUST HAVE CONTINUED TO MOVE WITH GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA, BOBBY JINDAL TO SAY THAT NEGROES AREN'T THE ONLY UGLIES IN THE NEWS, TODAY. I SOMETIMES WONDER IF BARACK IS EXPERIENCING A CURSE. HIS MOM IS WHITE AND HER NAME IS ANN. PEOPLE IN LOUISIANA ARE VERY REALISTIC ABOUT THE NAME "ANN" AND LOUIS AS IN LOUISIANA. THE FRENCH IS OBVIOUS, BUT, SO IS THE BLACK. PEOPLE ARE VERY SUPERSTITIOUS ABOUT SUCH THINGS. BEING THE SON OF A "MS. ANN" MAY NOT ALWAYS BE GRATIFYING. DOES THE FIRST LADY, MICHELLE, RATHER BE CALLED MRS. OBAMA, OF PROPER PROTOCOL, OR WOULD SHE RATHER JOIN IN THE NOW, INSULTING ILLUSTRATINGS OF "MS. MICHELLE" WHICH LOUISIANA STILL HANGS ON TO WHEN TARA AND MARGARET MITCHELL ARE LONG SINCE PAST?

[Freedom Eagle]

Failed GOP talking points poorly delivered.

That's the future of the GOP? Apparently so.

When not bashing rail plans that aren't in the stimulus bill, or berating disaster monitoring that doesn't apply to his state, Jindal just repeated the failed ideology of the past 8 years, with a delivery as tired as the ideas.

It spoke volumes, just not in the way the GOP would have liked.

[Freedom Eagle]

Failed GOP talking points poorly delivered.

That's the future of the GOP? Apparently so.

When not bashing rail plans that aren't in the stimulus bill, or berating disaster monitoring that doesn't apply to his state, Jindal just repeated the failed ideology of the past 8 years, with a delivery as tired as the ideas.

It spoke volumes, just not in the way the GOP would have liked.

[gorefan]

Jindal makes it sound like Louisanna took care of its own after Katrina without help from the federal government. Does that mean he will refund the $115 billion that the feds spent on katrina recovery. As the Governor of Mississippi said before he became a fiscal conservative, ""Not only has the administration and Congress given the Katrina states unprecedented amounts of money, they have also given unprecedented latitude to spend that money on Mississippi priorities rather than Washington priorities." As a congressman Jindal would have voted for those "unprecedented amounts of money." Maybe, he believes that the feds should only be involved in big disaster type relief. Well he should look around and realize that the economy is now in a Katrina type of disaster

That's a cute story about the sheriff, but it sounds like proof of insurance and registration are state government issues not a federal issues. Maybe that's where he needs to focus his attention on the state level and not on 2012.

[Ilovemycountry]

Bobby Jindal is a joke - he's too childish to be responsible for anyting resembling the presidency. The silly smirk on his face along with the useless politics makes him the next Sarah Palin.

[Rajiv]

As a person of Indian origin, I was always impressed with Jindal's credentials and rise in American Politics, even though I disagree with him on issues. Yesterday, he was utterly disappointing. His body language made it look like he was uncomfortable, his smile was not genuine and his voice has no sense of authority. Even the content of his speech with silly stories about his life were not up to the gravity of the situation facing this nation.

If this was the response Republicans give to Barack Obama, it was like shining a flashlight back at the Sun. Very disappointing from someone who is supposed to be a Whiz Kid - A Rhodes scholar and popular Governor at 37.

[alberta treadway]

I found Mr. Jandal speech slow, as if speaking to a group of small children instead of the adult scene intended to recieve the message. I found a lot of passages almost identical to what Obama had just got accross to the american people in a much clearer and thoughtful way. His imagrant story left me wondering,so I googled and found some surpriseing facts about his parents education,employment and the fact it childhood was not all that hard. I began to wonder where his loyalty lays. Rather with being RAISED by completly foreigner and learning about their struggles an embedding himself into his parents and families beliefs rather there would be a question of the struggle for loyalities in the two Nations his family is part of would touch or taint his own loyalties. I also have seriouse questions of rather he can be prez of the U.S. As republicans are so found of pointing out, this young man may fall undr the tittle of "anchor baby", and a look into the 14 th amendment and some seriouse forthought may come hand in hand on that. Mr. Jandal makes me feel nervouse, not only when he speaks to us in a childish way, but because of his sincere love and loyalty he seems to have for India, his parents home land that you hear in his voice when he speaks about India. I would also want to look into writtings,opinions of not only himself, but that of his parents an relatives toward the United sstates an it law's an constitution. i would want to have his family tree, and closer relatives names and locations and look into their ethic groups,back ground and religeon for seriouse security reasons. There is to much that rubs me wrong about Mr. Jandal, and to many questions to ans., and to much work to do, and to much suspetion for this man to run for president of the U.S.! Furthermore, Mr. Jandal had no opposition about takeing Federal funds for Katrina(a state emergency), so when he says he has opposition about takeing federal funds to help those in his state keep their homes,unemployment,food stamp an etc., I really must occure that he is doing Political postering and not considering the harm he is doing to the people of his state. I do find that a sad set of affairs for the people of louisiana, who still has not recovered from Katrina.

[Racist]

Racists will never appreciate knowledge of facts and analytics over oratory. While its not impossible to have both, but surely enough democrate talk was about false hope and republican talk was about thinking in detail

[Sally]

Did Jindal learn english by watching George Bush propoganda films?

Why does the failed GOP party even get air time? Why not have Ron Paul or another real politician give a speach that actually does GOOD for america.