Philosophical Fragments
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Also, one of the commenters recommended: “Osama bin Laden was caught due to our extraordinary intelligence and military apparatus. You, Mr President, didn’t build that.”
1. When Obama misrepresents Romney’s proposals: “I think we can all agree that the person in this room with the most motive to mischaracterize my proposals is Barack Obama. He can be very eloquent. But one we’ve learned about this President is that the more eloquent he becomes, the less we can trust what he’s saying. You learn this in the business world as well. Salesmen with a great product to sell will simply give you the logic and the evidence. It’s the salesmen who are trying to sell you a raw deal who deliver the most eloquent and exaggerated promises. What this President has given us is beautiful promises and a disappointing product.”
Why: Barack Obama is reputedly the most eloquent human being in the history of the planet ever. I think rumors of his eloquence have been greatly exaggerated, but there’s no question he delivers a good speech and a good commercial. If I were debating Obama, I would want to turn his eloquence against him. We all remember the flowery speeches and the over-the-moon promises. Plant the seed of doubt that it’s precisely when his words soar that he’s trying to fly over a disastrous reality.
2. When Obama attacks Romney instead of offering a clear plan for his second term: “A strong President runs on the power of his record. A visionary President runs on the power of his agenda for the next four years. But this President has sought to purchase reelection by selling the American people a false bill of goods about who I am and what I propose. President Obama wants you to be so scared of me that you’re willing to settle for another four years like the last. But the American people don’t need to be scared, and they certainly don’t need four more years of a struggling economy. Hope and change has been replaced by fear and blame. The American people need to be inspired. They need to know that their leaders are finally solving problems again and moving this nation forward. So every time Barack Obama, instead of setting out clear plans for the future, engages in blame and personal attacks, I think the American people should say to themselves: There he goes again, giving us more attacks when what we need is an agenda.”
Why: This plants in the minds of Americans a powerful response when they see the next attack ad: What happened to hope and change, and wouldn’t a strong President be touting his record and his vision instead of slandering his opponent?
3. When Obama references the death of bin Laden: “What we’re witnessing now around the world is the unraveling of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. America made an extraordinary sacrifice in Iraq to stand against dictatorship and for democracy — and as other nations saw that they too could enjoy freedom and democracy and human rights, they began to stand up against the tyrants in their own lands. In some cases, such as Iran and Syria, the President has done nothing meaningful to support those brave people who were rallying for freedom. I’m not talking about a new war, but there are many things we can do to stand strong with our allies and stand together against our enemies. In a few other cases, such as Egypt and Libya, this President chose to “lead from behind.” But “leading from behind” is just another way of saying “following along.” And the problem with leading from behind is that you don’t know you’re going. Now Egypt and Libya have become hotbeds of terrorist activity — the kind of terrorist activity that led to the attack on our diplomats and the death of ambassador Stevens.
“President Obama speaks as though he has projected a strong foreign policy. But it tells you something that Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro have endorsed Obama. People who want a weak America want Obama to remain in office. They understand that, with Obama in office, we will not stand as strongly for Israel. In four years this President has never once set foot in Israel, our greatest ally in the region. They understand that, with Obama in office, we will be more quick to compromise our values — such as Vice President Biden saying that he would not “second guess” China’s one-child policy, which leads to so many forced abortions of girls and even to infanticide. They understand that, with Obama in office, America will be burdened by a massive and ever-increasing debt. So I would suggest that you not take the advice of Hugo Chavez on whom to vote for.”
4. On Benghazi: “President Obama in our last debate said that he was offended when I criticized his handling of the attack on Americans in Benghazi. I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but I’m offended when an administration is more eager to lay the blame on an amateur video than it is clearly articulate the nature of our enemy. The President claims that he has weakened al Qaeda, and his administration twisted itself in pretzels to avoid saying that this was a terrorist attack. The President sent his ambassador to the UN onto all the Sunday talk shows, and she said the same thing that his press secretary said over and over again: this was a demonstration that arose spontaneously as a result of an American-made video. But it wasn’t. It was a terrorist assassination of an American ambassador.
“President Obama needs to come clean with the American people that the terrorist networks that would do us harm have only grown stronger in the past four years. Our drone strikes have managed to take out some al Qaeda leadership. And we can all celebrate that the American military and intelligence services under two Presidential administrations worked long and hard to get bin Laden. The President gave the order, and I’m glad he did. Of course, after an attack of that magnitude on our country, we go and get bin Laden when the opportunity arises. But terrorist networks change and evolve. They’re resurgent in places like Pakistan and Yemen and Libya, and we’re seeing countries like Russia and China delivering weapons systems and technologies into the hands of terror-sponsors in Iran and Syria. President Obama told us from the beginning that he wanted America to take a humbler role in world affairs. Apparently humble meant weak. What he’s given the world is a weaker America, and our enemies have prospered in the space that he has given them.”
5. On the Economy and Foreign Policy: “The Obama administration was very clever when it structured Obamacare so that many of the most onerous taxes and regulations would not kick in until after this election. What this tells me is, Obama understands that Obamacare is not good for the economy. The truth is, we really haven’t seen yet the full economy-killing effects of Obamacare yet. We’ve only begun to see a glimpse, and already we have CEOs who are saying that they will not hire because of Obamacare, and companies planning to drop their coverage because of Obamacare, other companies planning layoffs because they will not be able to afford all the additional burdens on their businesses. You might say, “This debate is supposed to be about foreign policy.” Well, the economy is the basis of everything we do. Without a strong and flourishing economy, our military cannot remain strong for long.
I applaud that President Obama wants to help the poor. So do I. Compassion compels us all to care for the poor. But you do not care for the poor by running the economy into the ground. And you do not equip America for a strong foreign policy by saddling it with mountains upon mountains of unsustainable debt.
President Obama is not out to destroy America. He just doesn’t know how to fix what’s wrong, and the programs and proposals he has put forward are only going to make matters worse. The problem with President Obama is not that he’s a bad person. He ran an incredible campaign in 2008, and he has some admirable qualities. The problem is that Barack Obama is not the President America needs right now. We cannot afford four more years of joblessness, four more years of stagnation, and four more years of weakness on the global stage.”
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