While Obama Stinks, Sarah Shines

"Give me liberty . . . or at least give me a big screen TV." Obama may be able to use that as a theme for his Administration. One of the great unanswered questions about Obama is why he "punished" (or was it just persuaded?) Michelle to give birth to Malia and Sasha?

On Monday a.m., I'll be writing more about why Obama, as President, is an idiot.

As a corporate and political speechwriter for 30-plus years (tempus fugit), I know lousy speeches when I hear them, and Obama gives many more than his share. Is Sarah Palin a great speaker? I refer you to her remarks at the Republican National Convention, where she gave the finest political speech most of us have ever heard.

In his speech on the housing "crisis" (yes, Barack, we know it's bad), a frightened and flustered Obama used one word 26 times. That word was "crisis." After the first and second use of word, every time someone repeats it in a presentation, it loses its capacity to register in a listener's mind. By the 20th or so usage, a "crisis" had become nothing special. It's the equivalent of the little boy crying "wolf" 20 times. (Obama's speecwriter gets this advice free-of-charge.)

Known (wrongly) as a great orator, Obama is in fact a terrible one. Take away his Teleprompter,and he becomes as articulate as a drunk at closing time. Now that he can't sell "hope" and "change" anymore -- and no longer has George Bush to kick around -- he has almost nothing to say.

If the man has ever uttered one memorable line, we must have missed it.

Beyond that, although he's very bad at defining problems, he's even worse at presenting solutions. A hint for Barack: The solution to a problem where the federal government, the states, companies, and individuals have been wildly over-borrowing is not to engineer a massive loan. When the nation and its people are over-spending, the last thing we need is a stimulus (spending) bill.

Here are suggested lines for Obama's future speeches: "Spend your money wisely. Don't borrow money you can't pay back. And don't ever try to borrow and spend your way to prosperity."