AP Asks If Obama Is "Obnoxiously Articulate"

[depakid]

Political reporters have now http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091005/melber2_video">toggled from worrying that Obama gets "too much" media coverage to asking whether he is "too" good at communicating through the media. Maybe even obnoxiously good. Maybe even -- here comes that http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/">loaded word from the primaries -- too articulate.

The http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jJ2qV2erkrC_f8Zz0Q0KncKbaA0QD9BA9H1O1">A.P.'s Liz Sidoti is on the case. And this is from a news article:

Obama has been a constant presence in the mass media as he expands the bureaucracy's reach into the private sector.... In doing so, he has created a quandary. Put aside for a moment the question of whether government is actually intruding into people's lives more than before. The point is that many people feel like it is -- in part because Obama doesn't stop talking about his goals. If President George W. Bush got slapped around for being inarticulate, is Obama obnoxiously articulate?

What a quandary!

Once you "put aside" the actual facts and policy debate, there's that President talking on the TV about "his goals" -- and talking so articulately -- it just makes you wonder if the government is going to tell you how to mow your lawn. Or something. The article doesn't really try to support its own premise, as blogger Brendan Nyhan explains:

Sidoti is forced to admit later in the piece that she has no empirical support for her claim:

While Obama has been criticized for being too visible, AP-GfK surveys in the spring and summer found that most people say he is on TV about the right amount.

If the "political" hook is that all this might matter because voters want different prime time programming, that's wrong, too. Note that we only "know" this because pollsters are spending money to ask whether The President is on TV too much. (On the list of frivolous things that get too much airtime, the federal government and leader of the free world are near the bottom.)

And then, just to round out the media madness, one of Nyhan's commenters did a little research and found the same A.P. reporter wrote http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/economy/ap/57741687.html">an article last month about Obama failing to articulate his vision to the public. How obnoxious.

More: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/484939/a_p_asks_if_obama_is_obnoxiously_articulate

Liz Sidoti- what a hack. Even more transparent than Nagourney.

[valerief]

1. That's their code for Hate the Black President Because He's Uppity. nt

[JBoy]

2. "Obnoxiously articulate" would be like "extra uppity".

[msanthrope]

11. No--it's 'uppity, and we don't get to lynch him'--thus, intolerable to the punditry. n/t

[jaysunb]

33. Bingo ! n/t

[Skittles]

13. CORRECT

Is Barrack Obama too uppity? That's a no-no

Is Barrack Obama too articulate? Perceived as perceptable, even though I highly doubt it would be asked about of a white person.

[WinkyDink]

50. Americans hate smart. Cf. "Stevenson, Adlai 'Egghead'".

[Hutzpa]

3. Someone posted this couple days ago.

and I'm being uppity with my observation....:evilgrin:

[depakid]

6. It turned up on Google news today

and it cracked me up- because I posted last year about another of Liz Sidoti's juvenile takes.

[opihimoimoi]

4. Utterly Ridiculous...Now its the "ARTICULATERS" ???

[WinkyDink]

51. Aricul-haters.

[LittleBlue]

5. How can one obnoxiously articulate something?

What drivel is this?

Please seal the lid on this bitch's trashcan before more of her spew can escape.

[CakeGrrl]

7. Uppity Negroitis strikes again

I've never seen anyone concerned about whether a white person is overly articulate. Just sayin'.

[pscot]

8. It would be awful

if the Freepers were made to feel self-consious about their illiteracy.
:rofl:

[Captain Hilts]

9. People said the same thing about Clinton. A "know it all." Again...

Louis Howe trained both FDR and ER NOT to act like the smartest guy in the room, because "no one likes the smartest guy." Hence, Al Gore's problems. And, now, Obama's. Sux.

It comes down to not liking smart Democrats.

[tblue37]

19. Fortunately they don't have a problem with not liking smart Republicans, because

there just aren't any.

[boomerbust]

10. Anal

[etherealtruth]

12. Hmmmm they didn't seem to have a problem with embarrassingly inarticulate

:eyes:

[Skittles]

14. YES

OMFG

[Deja Q]

17. Well, nobody's perfect...

:hide:

[uponit7771]

47. WORD

[irislake]

15. Wow! I just love that expression "oboxiously articulate".

I can't wait to use it about a couple of people I know. But it doesn't fit Obama. Obnoxiously articulate people use big words that send you scrambling for a dictionary. Obama can be understood by everybody. Wonderfully articulate and clearly understood.

Conrad Black, who is in jail in Florida, is obnoxiously articulate. Likes to show off and make others feel stupid. I think he still owns a newspaper in Chicago. Once owned the Telegraph in England.

Ooops! He is LORD Black. He gave up his Canadian citizenship to become an English Lord, which is why the poor guy is in a Florida jail. It would be nicer to be in a Canadian jail but we wouldn't take him back.

Probably cuz he was too damned obnoxiously articulate!

[JBoy]

16. Black's obnoxiousness is what made his fall so delicious.

Schadenfreude with sugar on top.

[tblue37]

20. That would be the late William F. Buckley, who wrote with a thesaurus in one hand. nt

[Arkana]

18. Yeah, he should be a gibbering idiot like W.

Christ almighty the AP sucks dog balls.

[ashling]

36. You put that so articulately

:rofl:

[LiberalFighter]

21. They didn't suggest that with Reagan "The Great Communicator" (asshole)

[Harry Monroe]

22. Nothing worse than an "Obnoxiously Articulate" President!!

I don't want my presidents to be articulate at all!!

WTF??

[CatWoman]

23. yet Bush was never described as

"Obnoxiously Inarticulate"

[AspenRose]

24. He's AWB

Articulate
While
Black

....so that naturally must be a BAD thing. :eyes:

[Jennicut]

25. He is just too damn....wait for it....smart! What will they think of next?

[Marsala]

28. "Too flawless" "Too perfect" "Just too good" n/t

[struggle4progress]

26. Translation: Liz Sidoti ain't gonna be no irritatinly articulate journalist what goes on to

to write some memorable prose, like them eggheads Ben Franklin or Mark Twain or H.L. Mencken or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, no sirree bob, she ain't gonna have nothin articulate to say if she can help it

[burning rain]

27. America has a hearty anti-intellectual streak.

Recently, think of the mocking of Adlai Stevenson and other "eggheads"; George Wallace, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Spiro Agnew going after intellectuals and "pointyheads" in the '60s and early '70s; George H. W. Bush affecting a taste for fried pork rinds and country music so as to seem "down-home"; all the drivel about George W. Bush being "the guy you'd most like to have a beer worth." Then there's the extra racial angle in Obama's case: a number of whites with racial animosities gnash their teeth and pull their hair over a black dude far more intellectually accomplished, well-spoken, and possessed of refined manners than they. Dick Gregory once observed of Southern white racists, that they "don't care how close you get, as long as you don't get too big" (Northern racist whites, according to his formulation, "don't care how big you get, as long as you don't get too close": a good bit of truth there in both cases, even if it's a bit too slick, as pithy formulas tend to be).

It's not really a minus to be smart in national politics, but it can grate on many folks if you sound smart. Bill Clinton was and is scary smart but at the same time sounds like "just plain folks," which is something like an ideal combination in national politics in the US, though damnably hard to acquire naturally--but Bubba is not called Bubba for nothing: the Rhodes scholar grew up in rural Arkansas and genuinely sounds like someone who sprang from that soil. He really did like his Big Macs, too. Others have to feign folksiness, and it often comes off as contrived. Besides Poppy Bush's aforementioned attempts, think of Hillary affecting a Southern accent during the 2008 primaries, and John Kerry going into an Ohio gun shop in 2004 and inquiring, "Can I get me a hunting license here?" Obama is smart as hell and sounds that way all the time. I like that, but it can cause him some problems. His easy self-confidence and absence of contrivance (no affected yokel ways for him) have their own attractiveness, though, and help to compensate. (It's sad to have to speak about "compensating" for conspicuous intellect, but this is after all America, a country in which "book learning" and "college boy" are often used as insults.) I doubt this perceived liability, to whatever extent it is a political liability, will hurt him much, though, given the nature of most of the problems our country now confronts--they tend to favor Democratic rather than Republican solutions--and the abysmal quality of the opposition. I say let Obama be Obama. He could stand to work on his "uh" problem, though.

[Odin2005]

29. Hatred against smart people and "uppity" blacks at the same time. Pathetic.

[niyad]

30. okay, I am confused. what does articulateness have to do with how many times one is on tv?

that is what one of the points seems to be, at any rate. and, if that is the case, how is it that the raving lunatics of the reichwing, with all their airtime, are NOT seen that way?

[niyad]

31. liz, you cretin, some of us actually prefer that our employees (our elected officials, in case you

do not understand the term) be articulate and intelligent, and able to string together coherent sentences and actually understand things. we know this must be a strange concept for you to grasp, but some of us are actually NOT afraid of intellectual capacity, even expressed verbally. on the other hand, we have a real dislike for stupidity, wilfull ignorance, sloppy mental processes, and sheer BS dressed as reporting or commentary.

you might want to ponder a comment attributed to mark twain: "it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." (do you need this explained, dear???)

[LynnTheDem]

32. Liz "idiot" Sidoti; Against Obama for being "too articulate" before she was

against Obama for being "not articulate".

:eyes:

[old mark]

34. Is Obama obnoxiously articulate or is the media obnoxiously stupid?

I vote for stupid.
They have all gone downhill in the W years, and lost whatever intelligence they may have had adapting to the Bush regime's aura of dumb.
They should all go hang out at Bush's place and get drunk together.

mark

[Ganja Ninja]

49. Yup

Obnoxiously stupid and obviously paid for.

[Thrill]

35. The bigger question is, Why is it whenever there is discussion of a smart black person

they have to be described as articulate?

I think thats the bigger problem here.

[Fleshdancer]

37. Did anyone ever ask this about Clinton or Reagan?

Just when you think things can't get any more ridiculous. :banghead:

[depakid]

40. Progression of the "mainstream" media- from Reagan on:

Under Reagan- sophomoric;

Under Clinton- juvenile;

Under Obama- infantile.

[appleannie1]

38. Jealousy rears it's ugly head. He is more proficient in communication than they are.

[eppur_se_muova]

39. Bingo! And they resent having to relearn critical listening and analysis skills. nt

[Cha]

41. "obnoxiously articulate" =

"I can't stand that President Obama can convey his message so well".."how the hell are we going to bring him down?"

[ChairmanAgnostic]

42. or insultingly intelligent, maybe, confoundingly constructive?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

43. The AP wants Obama to talk like President Camacho

President Camacho: Shit. I know shit's bad right now, with all that starving bullshit, and the dust storms, and we are running out of french fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution.





South Carolina Representative # 1: That's what you said last time, dipshit!



South Carolina Representative # 2: Yeah, I got a solution, you're a dick! South Carolina, what's up!

[krispos42]

44. I figured it would be the stand-up comedians complaining about this

Well, at least they can poke fun at Biden...

[Norrin Radd]

45. The AP is jealous, considering how inarticulate it is.

Example: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6797027&mesg_id=6797027

[uponit7771]

46. This has GOT to be a joke......

[saltpoint]

48. Them smarty-pants kollege folks -- ya just cain't trust 'em.