Obama’s sentiment about sediment on 60 minutes…

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Chalk this post up to my interest in how the English language is used (and misused). I thought college linguistics was fascinating. I guess my fascination with presidential speech patterns is somewhat understandable.

Bear in mind that the last president particularly drove me to distraction with his misusing or mispronouncing about every thirteenth word that he uttered. I suppose I’m used to being hyper sensitive to listening to the chronic mistakes GW made.


I’m guessing most folk probably didn’t even notice this and if they did wouldn’t care but the other night (Sunday to be exact) on 60 minutes President Obama interchanged two words. He was talking about Guantanamo, Cheney and the creation of more anti American “sediment.” He clearly had meant to say “sentiment.” Many people mix those two words without realizing it, just take a look at the internet.
For the record: sediment is the matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid, while sentiment is a feeling, emotion, attitude or opinion towards something.

However, that wasn’t the interesting thing… everybody makes mistakes and the rest of the interview was pretty coherent. Afterwards I listened to what the different station’s pundits had to say about the 60 Minutes segment and they varied from “it was awful he laughed inappropriately at the economic crisis” to “he was informative, sincere and spoke directly to the issues.” Of course no one mentioned the mistake because it’s not a very important one in the scope of a speech.

I had to laugh though because when I got to Rachel Maddow afterwards they had shown the clip where Obama misstated as part of a story on Cheney. When Rachel spoke about it she very clearly enunciated the word “sentiment” with a smile. I’m pretty sure she noticed the switch. So is that the jaws of the liberal/socialist/left leaning media monster that we keep hearing about being too gentle on Obama? So she’s mean to that nice, sweet hearted old Dick Cheney while she’s indulgent towards that contemptible, nasty Barack Obama. Mildly amusing. And not to be soft on Rachel but she was a Rhodes Scholar and has a doctorate in political science. I think she can take it.

If it had been Bush it would have just been simply another day, another speech, another mangled word, because after all George W was certainly our most “misunderestimated” president.
Wait what’d he say?

G’night,

Laura

President Obama on Jay Leno mostly good but for one gaffe.

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I have to give President Obama credit. He has been one of the most visible (and talkative) presidents in my memory. He tried to explain the AIG and banking problem, why it happened and what we might be able to do. It does help, we're so used to the government being secretive, manipulative and treating us like we're dumb children.


Leno asked some good questions like is it fair to target one group with high taxes and does that mean other groups can be taxed for a "good" reason? I was wondering about this myself. It seemed he assured us that no that wouldn't happen, this was a special case but at the same time he didn't exactly seem behind that 90% tax. Hmm.

Obama backed Timothy Geitner once again stating he has faith in him and pointed out again that he takes responsibility for being the president and for his cabinet. Refreshing, it's been a while (taking responsibility that is). Obama stated that the pattern in Washington is that everybody's always trying to find someone to else to blame for things and he wants to end that.

They talked about electric cars and wind power which I hope bodes well for getting into the doing rather than talking stage. Solar too.

Said Air Force One is cool... yup, already knew that from Harrison Ford.

The only gaffe seemed to be that when Leno asked him if he would be taking out the bowling lanes and Obama said he'd been practicing: "I bowled a 129." He said it was a bit special olympics but he was making progress. Though many reporters or talk show hosts have said things like this, because it was the President people will be fussing about it tomorrow I imagine. Obviously he didn't mean to disparage anyone that takes part in the Special Olympics but he should have been a little less free with his candor, though we all have said things that don't sound right but we don't have the whole country picking at everything we say. (Thank God right?) Might be he's been spending too much time around Vice President Biden. Gotta watch those gaffes they might be contagious.

Obama stated that he'd be getting "roll on hoops" for the tennis courts so there would most definitely be basketball going on.


Then came the important question: When's the dog coming? Very soon, it's coming very soon and then quipped:
"They say if you want a friend in Washington- get a dog."

Ah, how true, how true.

I thought by now I might be tired of seeing Obama talking everywhere or that it would get repetitive if he talked too often, but so far it's been okay. At least he talks to us, otherwise we'd only have the constant barrage 24-7 of pundits and Lord knows they do get repetitive and predictable. lol.

G'night,

Laura
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Two days into the Obama Presidency. Can't believe Bush has finally left the building!

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Looks like Geithner will be approved dispite the tax thing.
Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand is the likely pick for Hillary Clinton's senate seat.
He is definitely going to pick a woman I'm sure of it and I think it will be Kirsten too.
Wasn't too sure about Caroline Kennedy for many reasons.

I'm rather annoyed by something that Rush LImbaugh said (big surprise).
Rush said on air that he hopes President Obama fails. Literally that is what he said. He wants Obama to fail.
He disagrees with Obama obviously but to say such a thing at this time and place is pure bullshit.
To wish failure on Obama means that many American’s would have to suffer even more than they are now.
I despise Rush Limbaugh, what a jerk. How stupid can you get and still be listened to?
What’s the difference between him and any ex-drug addict, oh, yea, he’s not in jail. Yes, ole’ Rush’s moral character is of the finest caliber… but I guess his God forgives him those trespasses eh?

Interesting thing about Rush Limbaugh… he has a web site of course where you can go listen to his tirades.
Or at least you should be able to, but there’s just one thing: you can’t listen to anything without joining his “group.” Costs you money to do that folks. So I guess Rush is just another money grubbing creep. So many of them out there. Check Rushie’s site out:

Limbaugh's World

Very high opinion of himself it would seem. Bill O’Reilly’s site has the same thing. Ya gotsa pony up the bucks if you want your daily dose of right wing dogma.
Well, at least I can see those cute lil’ clips on CNN and You Tube even if I wouldn’t in a million years send any money to hear your constant tirades and add to your coffers. we can find you out there for free… oh lucky us.

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I want President Obama to succeed. Sane people want Obama to succeed.
All people want to avoid a depression. Most people support whoever is the president of the United States of America even if they didn’t personally vote for him/her themselves. We don’t wish our president ill we support him. The majority of people in our democracy freely of our own volition VOTED for President Obama.
I didn’t vote for George Bush but I didn’t want him to fail if it meant that our country would fail.
Shut up Rush. Just shut up. I know you won’t but it’s a free country and I’m free to dream.
Actually I don’t care if you shut up really, I just hope people start to think about some of those really inflamatory and stupid things you keep saying and simply stop listening to you. That would be better, since you share the same freedom of speech we all have.

Amazing.

G'night,

Laura

Tomorrow!!! Finally it's tomorrow!!! Inauguration Day is finally here.

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G'bye George Bush not sorry to see you go.
Hello President Barack Obama, very happy to see you and good luck with the mess we're in.

Did catch up with all the news I missed yesterday due to my playing in the snow!
I'm heartened by the changing of the guard as are most of us who are really hopeful that President Obama will be better prepared to work with the war in Iraq and our economy. I think it's going to be tough.

They keep talking about Obama's 89% approval rate and how 79% of the people just "like" him and feel he'll be a good president.
The thing that keeps bothering me about these stats (aside from the fact that I took a lot of statistics courses and realize how sketchy they can be) is that there were quite a lot of people attending McCain/Palin rallies that seemed very unhappy with Obama and even a bit scared and angry about him. Where did these people all go off to and are they actually in the count?

Didn't get that much out of the Rhom Emanuel interview (NBC) or David Axlerod's (ABC) as far as what the state of the union might actually be or if the stimulus package will truly fix things. Rather anxious about the amount of spending we don't have. Isn't that what got us all into this mess in the first place? The interviews only brought more questions into my mind.
I want to be supportive and get behind fixing the future, but I'm a bit unsure about what will end up in the plan. I know Obama says there won't be any unnecessary pork but I'm having trouble believing it. How much will creating jobs cost and what kind of jobs will they be? Construction won't work for many that need jobs... what other jobs are we talking about?

What projects will be funded? I suppose if I trusted our elected officials (and it's really hard to do that these days) I'd feel that we'd have an efficient stimulus package. Lean and mean. The problem is that I think congress can't get out of it's own way for the most part. I do believe we have a short window of effectiveness for all this though. What to do, what to do...

I wonder if Palin is sitting in Alaska hoping Obama fails and the republicans will run her to come in and F things up further save the day. Nasty old media made this whole economic mess up to thwart their economic plans, wait, McCain/Palin didn't seem to have one did they?

Please put Bernie Madoff in jail along with anyone else like him. Are his assets frozen like mine would've been? I hope so.
Weasel of the worst kind and he doesn't even get it.

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Okay so I'm going to stop being worried, tomorrow is the start of the Barack Obama presidency and I along with the majority of this fine country will be watching it on the tv, computer and enjoying the start of a new administration.

Went out and took some nice snowy photos today I'll post them after President Elect Barack Obama IS President Barack Obama. Sounds good to me!

G'night,

Laura
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