This has nothing to do with what Obama was speaking about in his speech. Sure creating an organization to help old people cross is road is fine but Obama is stating that this organization will be as powerful, as strong and as funded as well as the US military.
How does the article from the Chicago Tribue have nothing to do with the 16-second extract of Obama's speech? Do you think the party's policies and plans regarding national security have changed since July? Don't you know that you can't rip a sixteen-second phrase out of context and then ask the question "what was he thinking"?
I linked to just one source which answers your question, regardless of your question being out of place, polemic, and inaccurate.
The speeches that are being held in a political race take a given party's policy as the basement and build up on it. Stories, if you will. Notice my pun.
This is true for every speech, because
the aim of a speech is not to discuss politics but to win people for your cause. I will repeat myself: This is true for every speech that is being held - meaning McCain and Palin also, and every other person holding a public speech.
Of course this opens these public personalities up to criticism which is aimed at what they say. But what is said is only a paraphrase of a policy that has been decided upon a while back. This policy is being described in the article I linked to above. And as you can see, your hero McCain has similar views. But his campaign is weighted differently - e.g. attacking Obama to distract from a lack of strong political policies and ideas on his side.
We could go deeper into this, but let me just ask you this: Why is McCain & Co. attacking Obama so often, instead of talking about what they would do if they get elected? Are they trying to hide something?
It's because they have nothing to answer to the arguments Obama makes. It's marketing. Obama's campaign touched people right from the start. "Vote for Change" is EXACTLY what they needed to hear. This is great marketing. The Republicans, on the other hand, were still half asleep when this claim came out. They had to come up with something real quick, and the difference between a political campaign and marketing is only that in the former, you may do a few things that you may not in the latter. Among these things is making statements about your competition without backing them up.
So due to a lack of
a) better arguments,
b) a general marketing strategy,
c) better issue policies,
this is what the Republican Party did:
- they acquired Palin to be McCain's running mate ("people WANT change, this black guy IS change by nature, how can we also communicate "change"? AH, a woman! That's a new turn. That's change. Plus, we'll get the American women to vote for her because they can identify with her"). This was not so much because she is qualified to do the job but because of her gender.
- they ventured into an offensive position in the tone of their campaign. This, usually, has several advantages for the offender:
-- an attack can distract from the fact that they have nothing of substance to counter some very good statements of the opponent
-- the general scare tactics that have been employed for such a long time by the current administration have seeded the soil for such attacks, raising hatred and fear of the supposedly unknown
As great and to-the-point as the democratic claim ("Vote for Change") is, it also offers a huge surface for attacks. That's because humankind is generally afraid of change. It's against our nature. The Republicans saw this and abused it, thus successfully distracting from the fact that Obama is far better known in public, as well as possesses more integrity and experience, than e.g. Palin, who constantly escapes every single question she is being asked. If we want to talk about "not knowing who he is", we should ask the same question about her.
The bottom line is: This is marketing. A speech is an element of public relations. Look for the issues instead when you vote, knowing that the President is not the end all, be all, but merely the public face of a party. The party runs the country, and big business owns pecentages of both parties.
Only that, by nature, this percentage is higher for the Republicans, as their policies are more beneficial for big business than the Democrats' are. Think about it.
I don't know why I give you the audience here popeye - this has been discussed over and over here -, I'm sure you're a nice guy, too, but if you post excerpts of a speech and ask questions like these, my better half comes out and I would like to take you by the hand like a little child and show you the world.
