Obama-talk: Poker Face or Fisherman?

Yes I have been accused of being too verbose at times. I can get carried away with the best of them and will hang almost anything (except pictures), given enough rope. From personal experience however I’m also a lousy poker player. If I start chattering too long and too fast, I am usually subconsciously nervous, and REALLY trying too hard to fake a bluff or avoid revealing my hand. That’s why I’ll stick with fishing – you can talk all day, but in the end you either catch fish or you don’t. No doublespeak to get in the way and confuse the results.

Recently President Obama was asked a question that was fairly short and sweet. The crux of it was “Is it a wise decision to add more taxes to us with health care – aren’t we over-taxed as it is?” The President started strong with his defense of his policy and the reasons as he sees it to make the sacrifice. The problem was that he could not seem to stop talking. I am assuming that he just got a fresh set of Energizers before the press conference, because the Prez even astounded his own staff at his verbosity and the length of his rambling filibuster.

No I did not pull-up the transcript to confirm the word count or even time the exchange for that matter. But reportedly the Washington Post (web linked here) did the numbers and the President took some 2500 words and over 17 minutes to answer the single question? Wow, no wonder it takes so long to get stuff processed through the government bureaucracy. I had better remember that when I cut my head or need some of those top-shelf healthcare medical services in the future.

I know I am being a bit too picky. President Obama’s probably got a decent poker face and he’s not the first politician or last, to get his line tangled with dozens of others when fishing on a public pier. It’s just that in THIS case, if the public cannot understand the original legislation or its ‘benefits’ that have been forced upon them. Why can’t Obama or anyone else explain why we caught fish or didn’t concisely – doesn’t that send up a red flag warning? Oh- wait … please Mr. President, I don’t have the time for you to answer that. You see, I have to get back to work – since after taxes, my lunch HOUR is really only 17 minutes long!