Off the cuff Obama (or off his rocker?)

Hillary Clinton may have been onto something when she implied Barack Obama's only public policy skill is giving good speeches.
I've read many of Obama's speeches on his website, and he is a good speechifier. However, one begins to wonder if he actually had a hand in writing any of those eloquent speeches when Obama is caught going off-script.

Below is part of Obama's response, from a town hall meeting in Johnstown, PA, to a question about how his administration would approach HIV/AIDS and STD's in young girls. It has sparked alot of criticism for Obama's devaluing of human worth, when in the form of an unplanned child. Almost as insightful as his "punished with a baby" remark, is the inarticulate and clumsy rambling of an Obama-sans-teleprompter, nor a carefully crafted speech.


"So, when it comes to -- when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence only -- should include abstinence education and teaching that children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual.

But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16." (So, Obama equates a baby with an STD?) "You know, so, it doesn't make sense to not give them information. You still want to teach them the morals and the values to make good decisions. That will be important, number one.

Then we're still going to have to provide better treatment for those who do have -- who do contract HIV/AIDS, because it's no longer a death sentence, if, in fact, you get the proper cocktails. It's expensive. That's why we want to prevent as much as possible.
But we should also provide better treatment. And we should focus on those sectors where it's prevalent and we've got to get over the stigma because understand that the fastest growth in HIV/AIDS is in heterosexuals, not gays. And so, we've got to get out of that stigma that we still have around it.
It's connected also to drug use. So, one of the things we have to do is to start thinking about better substance abuse treatment programs around drugs and not just treat it as a criminal justice issue. Treat it as a public health issue as well.

So -- but this all is connected to the idea of prevention and so my health care plan says, you know what? I don't want kids in the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma. I want them to get a primary care doctor and have regular check-ups and, you know, if we decreased obesity rates back to the rates that existed back in 1980, we would save the Medicare system a trillion dollars -- one trillion dollars because that's what's accounting for huge spikes in heart disease and diabetes and all kinds of preventable illnesses. So we've got to put emphasis on that.

Let me say one last thing, though. I'm going to use the presidential bully pulpit to start talking about people taking responsibility. We were talking about education earlier. It doesn't matter how good the job the schools are doing, if parents, you don't turn off your TV sets and put away your video games and make your kids do your homework and meet with the teachers, it won't make any difference. And the same is true on health care. I mean, some of us just have bad luck, and -- or genetically, are predisposed to certain diseases.

But, you know, if we're not all making some effort to get exercise and, you know, eat properly and not smoke and, you know, and I know -- I've had my own little battles. You know, I used to sneak a few cigarettes once in a while. My wife cut me off at the pass. She announced on 60 Minutes, she said, you know, "Yeah, he used to smoke (cocaine?) once in a while, and he promised me. So if you catch him, anybody out there" -- but that was good. I think we all have to take some responsibility for these issues as well. That's going to be important."

How can someone so stupid amass such wealth?

To save our planet from global warming, CNN founder Ted Turner insists the country (and "the whole world") needs to approach the problem "the same way we did when we entered WWII, we have to fully mobilize everything we have".



And then Turner warns us of his dire predictions if we don't: "Not doing it will be catastrophic. We’ll have eight degrees- we’ll be eight degrees hotter in ten- not ten- but thirty to forty years, and basically none of the crops will grow; most of the people will have died, and the rest of us’ll be cannibals- civilization will have broken down- the few people that are left will be living in, in, in a failed state like Somalia or Sudan, and living conditions will be intolerable. The droughts will be so bad- there’ll be no more corn growin’. It, it will- it, it- not doing it is suicide- just like dropping bombs on each other, and nuclear weapons is suicide."



Cannibals!? In thirty to forty years? His grandchildren, if they survive the Hades-like eight-degree higher temps, will become cannibals? Not much faith in humankind, I guess. Which is kind of funny, because in the same interview, he said "I mean, I know we're the same people (humans) who did the holocaust, but we also did the Mona Lisa and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony".



Not even the most hysterical climatologists have inferred that global warming, if its man-made, will reach the point of no return in thirty to forty years. (Thank God Ted caught himself on his original timeline of ten years or he may have been one of those cannibals!)





Interviewed on the Charlie Rose show on April 1st--wait just a gall-durned minute now! April 1st? Have I been duped? Was this just an April Fools joke I got snookered by?

No...after reviewing the entire show, I'd have to say that Turner was serious. And Rose is always serious. Sorry about the interruption...



As I was saying, Charlie Rose had "a conversation with Ted Turner" , which I've linked to, on his April 1st broadcast, in which Rose asked him about: CNN, conservation, AOL, journalism, George W. Bush, war, presidential election, cable news, Iraq, Time Warner [keyword links by Charlie Rose], as well as global warming, the Goodwill Games, and Fidel Castro.





When Rose cozies up to Turner with “people listen to you and the views you’re expressing”, Turner replies “They should. I think alot and I’m smart. Ya know, I’ve worked at that, I’ve worked at that.” Which is quite evident, when Turner later says "I love this planet, and it’s worth saving. It’s worth saving." Man, it doesn't get any smarter than that.

That wisdom is bolstered by this brilliant analysis of the Bush Administration (in response to a question about how we should address illegal immigration): “What are we gonna do- shoot ‘em?! Who are we gonna shoot? Our present administration figures that, just, ya know, if ya don’t like the way that somebody’s doin something just start shootin’m and bombin’m! But all that does is mak’m madder!”

"And I don’t like the wall, the wall… I remember we had a president that we all liked pretty much, and he said ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ " Sheer brilliance.



About the Goodwill Games, that he created, Turner says “I spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting peace between the countries, and understanding, and I’m sure that it led-that it was one of the things that led to the end of the Cold War- we’re a lot safer now than we were during the Cold War.” Later in the interview he does, at least, acknowledge that Ronald Reagan “was real instrumental in ending the Cold War”.



Turning the dialogue to the ailing Cuban communist dictator, Fidel Castro, Rose asks “Your friend, Fidel, is near death- or not?... Have you sent word to him, have you sent him a note saying…?” Turner says “I did. Yeah, cuz I’m concerned about him. I offered to stop down and see him, but I didn’t get an answer.”


Rose asks “So, do you think Fidel was a good man or a bad man?” Turner pauses, looking up ponderously, and says "Ah, I, I, I think he’s done a lot of good, and he’s done some bad too, I mean, I- I don’t like, ah, his human rights-" Rose interrupts to challenge him: “I thought you’d be a big 'freedom’ man'.” To which, Turner insists “I am. I am. That’s the thing I’m against. I was just gonna- tryin to say before you interrupted me, again… that I didn’t like his record on human rights and democracy.”

So, Turner has to ponder the question and search for a diplomatic answer about the murderous Commie tyrant, and offers up praise to him before begrudgingly criticising his "record on human rights", but he easily accuses- with no prompting whatsoever- that President Bush "figures that, just, ya know, if ya don’t like the way that somebody’s doin something just start shootin’m and bombin’m!" Mensa-like mentality there.

In response to a reference by Rose about communist North Vietnam being a great market for U.S. goods, Turner says "They’re great people. And we just killed three million of’m. If we hadn’t done that, we’d have even more customers over there. We’re killing our own customers!" Hey Ted!: The Viet Nam War was 35 years ago. (Maybe having been married to Hanoi Jane makes it seem like it was just yesterday.)

Turner sums up his To-Do list for America: "So we’ve gotta stop doing the two suicidal things, which are hanging on to our nuclear weapons and then after that we’ve got ta, we’ve got ta stabilize the population..." Rose interrupts, again, with “What’s wrong with the population?” To which Turner continues, “We’re too many people. That’s why we have global warming! We have global warming cuz too many people are using too much stuff! If there were less people they’d be using less stuff.” Plato would be proud of Ted.

As evidence of Turner's hypothesis, he contends, “The natural world is collapsing all around us, and global warming is just one manifestation of that. A few years ago, remember we had the hole in the ozone layer that was caused by CFC’s. We’re, we’re altering the climate and the world in so many different ways. And, and, and, what we’re doing is, is, is reducing the Earth’s carrying capacity, so that, each year the, the, the natural world gets poorer, and, and less able to support the increasing number of people. We have a finite world, but an infinite ability to increase our population, and we’ve got ta, we’ve got ta handle, handle that.”

Ted's solution for that?: “We’ve got to stabilize population. On a voluntary basis, everybody in the world’s gotta pledge to themselves: one or two children is it. And, and, and ah, we’ve got to do that, otherwise all the gains that we make in redoing our energy system are gonna be erased by a population increase.”


How in the world- you may be asking- did a moron like Ted Turner manage to build a financial empire and launch successful enterprises like CNN, TNT, and TBS while remaining so utterly clueless? Well, perhaps the answer lies in the distinct talents for making money that are separate from the conventional characteristics of intelligence. The sort of money-mind that only an economic genius possesses...one that allows Turner to make this sort of analogy to principal vs. interest: “Basically, we’ve got to take better care of our planet. We’ve got to move into a sustainable mode, that we’re living on the interest of the planet and not encroaching on the principal, like we are today.”

Now if we could only figure out what would represent interest, in the way of resources- and what would be the principal...