Thursday, September 23, 2010

Obama goes off teleprompter again

Writer Gail Sheehy has a hilarious account of President Obama's Wednesday night fundraiser:

Six weeks before the election, President Obama couldn’t fill the ballroom at the Roosevelt Hotel, despite cheap tickets on offer. And then he was met by hecklers.
That's when a rattled Obama fell into casual slander:

Addressing an activist pushing for more funding for global AIDS initiatives, the president said, "We heard your point. And as I said before, we increased AIDS funding. … The people who will take over if we don’t focus on the election, I promise you, will cut AIDS funding."
Of course I don't need to point out that federal funding for AIDS treatment and research has risen steadily – often by double digits – over the past twenty years, in both Democratic and Republican administrations. But, what the heck, it's all part and parcel of Obama's traveling road show where the promise of another "car in the ditch" speech couldn't fill a ballroom in New York City with $100 tickets and an open bar.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sheehy:
There it was, the forgotten word: Sacrifice. That was the mantra of the Greatest Generation, buried under tens of thousands of American GIs whose families sacrificed their greatest treasure to fight for our ideals. The Bush mantra was Shop.

Still, the Obama fundraisers must be doing something right, because the DNC has consistently outraised the RNC, taking in $10.9 million in August, according to The Washington Post.


Hyuk yuk yuk! A hilarious account!

Eric said...

Don't forget all the AIDS victims that Obama is killing.

That's not me: that's what the hecklers said. I report, you decide.

Anonymous said...

Hey, life is cheap in Kenya.