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Friday, January 29, 2010

Barack Headroom II: Me-mix of the State of the Union address

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Whatever you may say about Barack Obama, he is a master of the first person personal pronoun—it's all about me (and “I”, “my”, “myself” and “mine”)! In the spirit of the original Barack Headroom audio, here's an extract from Obama's full 2010 State of the Union speech of the “me me me” moments: I call it a “me-mix” of the State of the Union.

In this speech, Obama (well, his speechwriters) departed from the usual formula for a State of the Union where in the first minute or so the president declaims “The state of the Union is adjective”, where adjective is usually something like “groovy”, “really sweet”, or “icky, but what do you expect, you truck-driving rubes”. Obama never actually summarised the state of the nation; I suppose if he did, he'd have said, “It sucks, but then I inherited it.”

Imagine how more credible that explanation will be for Obama's successor.

Posted at January 29, 2010 22:15