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Brutal.

VIDEO: Veteran group not too impressed as Obama lectures them about cynicism



Via the Weekly Standard, I'm guessing one of Obama's least favorite things about being president is that he has to make speeches to groups like this. When you're the commander in chief, you can't exclusively set yourself in front of hand-picked throngs of adoring left-wingers and Democratic Party operatives (although you can certainly try). Sometimes veterans' groups demand an audience with the president, although in this case they don't appear too thrilled to have gotten it:

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I actually think he's trying to compliment them when he says "you should know better" with respect to cynicism, or maybe I should say he's trying to mouth a compliment however much he may not be feeling it. But that's the problem with the whole speech, and the reason you can't get away with that when you're talking to veterans is that they do understand real duty and real honor, and they're the last people who are going to be fooled when they're in the presence of a complete poseur. To listen to Obama talk about "American leadership" and how the rest of the world calls us to fix their problems, as if he is thrilled by that proposition and loves every opportunity to rise to it, is simply the essence of talking-pointy insincerity and the veterans know it perfectly well. It's almost the sort of thing that could make you cynical. Everyone in the room, Obama included, is saying with their non-verbals, "Do I really have to be here doing this?" To him, they're a constituency group he can't afford to alienate by not showing up and delivering remarks. To them, he's the guy occupying the office they long-ago committed themselves to respect and honor, no matter how undeserving the individual holding the title may be. So all you can do is get through it as quickly as possible and move on. You have to go through the motions of being respectful and mildly interested in what's going on. There's no rule that you have to do that so well that anyone's buying it. Clearly.


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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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