October 14, 2012

At the Cognac Café...

DSC09506

... you can talk about anything, including the upcoming "town hall" debate. The photograph, above, was taken during the 2008 Town Hall debate. See? That's Obama on the left and McCain on the right, seen through a cognac glass. I went back to my old post "Live-blogging the big 'town hall' debate" because I wanted to get a feeling for how good Obama was in that setting. I heard Laura Ingram on TV today saying: "The town hall format is much friendlier to Barack Obama, he's good in that format." And I had some doubts about that. I think Mitt Romney might do better than Obama at interacting with the people. After all, he's had decades of ministering to individuals within his religious calling. I think he knows how to do that. By contrast, Obama tends to relate to big audiences, where he's in a spotlight, orating. Does he seem warm when talking to one individual?

56 comments:

Biff said...

I was at a reception on the Yale campus this week, and the rapturous buzz was that Hillary Clinton is among the leading candidates to become the next President of Yale. (The current President is stepping down at the end of the academic year.)

Personally, I think that it would be a terrible mistake for the university to recruit such a polarizing political figure with relatively slim executive experience to be its next President, but stranger things have happened.

Nonetheless, I imagine that Ms. Clinton might find the Presidency of Yale to be a comfortable post from which to plan her next campaign. Very Eisenhower-goes-to-Columbia. (Before running for President of the United States, Eisenhower was President of Columbia University. While President of C.U., he served as the Supreme Commander of NATO. Hard to imagine something like that happening today!)

Palladian said...

I can see the gravitational lensing caused by Barack Obama's event horizon as it prepares to swallow up that white dwarf.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Being of nothing promulgates nothingness, until it doesn't.

WFB wrote a book about visiting the wreckage of the Titanic.

Now why?

wyo sis said...

From the clip I'd have to say Obama is a miserable failure at warm and personal. He seems to have a difficult time looking at the woman who asked the question.

Paul Kirchner said...

I bet they didn't invite the black woman who told Obama, "I'm exhausted of defending you" a couple of years ago.

mccullough said...

The town hall format is pretty dumb, especially on Long Island. It's like a cheesy infomercial. Since its on Long Island, maybe we'll at least get some crazy accents. Maybe Joey Budafucco will be there.

KCFleming said...

Who would've guessed, seeing that charismatic young man in the 2008 Town Hall debate, that 4 years later we'd be still in a recession, and overall we'd all be worse off?

Well, not all of us. Friends of Barack are dong fine.

But whodathunk?

wyo sis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David said...

Obama is very warm. Just ask Sean Smith's mom.

(She's distraught. And slamming the President. So why doesn't he just call her and smooth it over?)

Because it might not go well, and he just couldn't stand that.

coketown said...

Hahahaha. Remember the French maid in the movie Clue? "Me too, I also drank ze cognac!"

I always think of that when someone mentions cognac. Hahaha.

I think Romney's business background lends itself to the town hall format more than his religious background. Business is about selling. It's convincing a skeptical and somewhat hostile listener to say yes. I sell mortgages now, and each application is like a little town hall. You have to think fast and talk faster. You have to consider each question individually, consider the person asking it, and decide whether you're going to appeal to their intellect or their emotions or some combination of the two to make the sale. Some people react positively to concrete numbers. "With this refinance, you'll save $500 a month." That registers with them. Other people don't want to hear numbers. They want to feel good about their decision. So you say, "We can do a cashout refi to pay off your daughter's credit card debt and help you save $350 a month to put toward her kid's tuition." That registers with them. Romney probably did this day in, day out, for decades. Where would Obama have practiced this? Nowhere. Maybe during Q&A as a college lecturer. I don't know. I'm sure their approaches will differ greatly and will offer much fodder the following day.

KCFleming said...

Like Soviet leaders, Obama is best viewed through a glass of high-proof alcohol.

chickelit said...

Cool first link. Whatever happened to Dody Jane?

bagoh20 said...

I'd like to ask that as part of choosing who to vote for in the 2012 Presidential election that people try a simple exercise. Imagine that an assistant of yours has fairly and diligently assembled a resume on each man detailing their failures and accomplishments. It only includes their words if they were promising something, and then indicates if they delivered on that promise. You don't know what they look like, their religion, who their friends are, their wives, or which party they belong to.

Then using only what they have done or failed to do, choose a man for the job. Not someone to represent you or your beliefs, or someone to have a beer with, but a man to do a job - a very important job that if it is screwed up will seriously damage your family, your friends and their future.

Just hypothetically - for fun.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Were Ann Althouse have to have said " "

Palladian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

Sometimes an asshole is just what you need to get a job done, but being an asshole and not getting the job done really wears out your welcome.

Palladian said...

That's not a cognac glass, it's the bell-jar descended upon us... How do we know that someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, won’t descend again?

ALH said...

I will try Bagoh's thought experiment.

In 2008, a certain somebody promised that the earth would begin to heal. Today, I read that a study showed global warming has stopped. Obviously He is the One for the job.

gk1 said...

I remember that 2008 debate and how I thought obama was naive, shallow and greatly over hyped. Yet he won anyway. Here we are almost 4 years later and he is still as naive and shallow as I remember him. Does anyone think he has remotely "grown into the job" or is wiser? I see no indication of that.

wyo sis said...

ALH
Hmmmmm.
Not quite what I expected. Can you establish a link to Obama?

bagoh20 said...

I read that it was Bill Clinton in 96 who ended Global Warming. The answer came to him one day as he was pondering the beauty of a finely wrapped unlit cigar. As he leaned back in his chair in the oval office, he thought "what we need is less talking and more action." After a few minutes of concentration, he stood up and said: I'm sorry, did I get some on your dress? The world was saved.

Zachary Sire said...

Unless you're going to play dumb (and you're good at that), linking to that out-of-context, edited video was a pretty tacky and deceitful move, Althouse. What a hack.

Anyway, you're misleading people. Here's the unedited exchange between Obama and the woman; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJYvaLS-xOw

As my whimsy leads me.. said...

Senator Rob Portman is standing in for Obama in Mitt Romney's debate practice. I wonder if he feels the way C.S. Lewis felt when he was writing "The Screwtape Letters." Lewis said it was extremely distasteful to have to think like a couple of devils in order to write the letters of Screwtape to his nephew,Wormwood. Lewis said that book was the only one he did not enjoy writing. "They were dry and gritty going. At the time, I was thinking of objections to the Christian life, and decided to put them into the form, 'That's what the devil would say.' But making goods 'bad' and bads 'good' gets to be fatiguing."

Toy

Chip Ahoy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chip Ahoy said...

Was that the one where McCain underwent the torture of the cone of silence and emerged a wet dishrag and thus unable to continue further questioning? That was really mean. In my view put the man at an unfair disadvantage.

Chip Ahoy said...

I wonder if Rob Portman feels like Larry Linville playing Frank 'Ferret Face' Burns.

He eventually hated the role. Had to get out.

Lawyer Mom said...

Here's another warm moment: Obama saying seniors are so stupid, they are paying for Medicare advantage plans that give them nothing. So let's stop all this senior foolishness right now, he says, and give that senior $$ to young families.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpJbsoVT5dQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Put simply, consumers -- particularly the old ones -- make bad purchases and it's high time the government stepped into school them. Oh, how warm and fuzzy I'm feeling now.

Chip Ahoy said...

Speaking of brandy, I used 1/4 cup in salt/sugar/spice brine for pork chops tonight. I figured apple would be good, kind'a like applesauce. It seemed like a good use for it. The last time I totally overdid it with the coating and I sure won't make that mistake again.

But here you are drinking it out of a glass. Straight, presumably. That's quite shocking. It's like poison, you know. It's flammable!

If you set a flame to the liquid, it will torch. If you drink it and accidentally set a flame to yourself, you will torch.

Firebreathing from the fumes.

You could run an automobile off its fumes.

I'm imagining.

I'm against its mind-altering esters. Although, I'd be interested in the bottle. What shape does the bottle have upside down? Pour out all that shit into a jar for brines and give me the bottle and don't ever drink it straight, that's just horrible.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Hey Chip check out the google doodle that just went up..

Probably in honor of a hero of yours.

Chip Ahoy said...

Lem, that's awesome! A whole world keeps opening up more and more.

Anonymous said...

Ok, Chip, I've got newly purchased loin pork chops in the frig right now so you're saying 1/4 cup of brandy in salt/sugar/spice brine? How did you like it?

Here I was just gonna use them in a scalloped potato casserole, since I have a bag of potatoes I have to get rid of, but I like the sound of your recipe much more.

Chip Ahoy said...

They're still soaking but I did this before. Turns out they're not chops but chop like pork entities.

I used as little liquid as possible which turns out to be about 6 cups water.

* 1/2 cup kosher salt
* 1/2 cup sugar
* peper corn
* cumin seed
* fennel seed
* 1/4 cup apple brandy/ white wine/ sake/ whiskey / rum/ tequila/ whatever.

Soak a few hours or overnight.

Soak in plain water for about 10 minutes to get the salt to migrate back out and equalize. It does this quickly because the cell walls are damaged.

Dry off. Rub with oil and bake. Coat with breadcrumb if you like, or not. It's easier to skip breading but they should be moist with oil if baking.

The brine keeps the pork roast, chops, whatever more moist than without it. It gives a chance to introduce flavors. If you cover them while baking then it braises them and no need to coat with oil. If uncovered then it caramelizes the surface and a film of oil helps that. Internal temperature 145℉ .

Christopher said...

Entertaining poll out by WaPo/ABC.

Apparently Obama will win re-election by 3 points if the Dems. are +9 in party identification.

pm317 said...

If nothing else, Obama's performance will be scrutinized more this time -- they can't say "move on, nothing to see here" and hide stuff under the carpet. I don't think he will get away with the answer he gave in that last video, "take a painkiller instead of surgery to cut WASTE".

KCFleming said...

Christ almighty, Zachary, the full version makes him look even worse.

She asked if the elderly would have medical decisions take into account the entire person (including their 'spirit'), or would it just be harsh age cutoffs regardless of how lively one is.

Obama said 'spirit' is too subjective and we need some firm rules.

He talked right passed her. That exchange should scare the shit out of people. He can look right at you and act as if you are merely some block of wood to be moved around, or discarded.

What a sociopath.

Worse is that you thought the complete exchange actually made him seem more personable.

Yipes!

edutcher said...

Zero is going to be more energized this time out.

Another Biden performance, complete with his legendary smile?

Maybe Ann's right and the only way to get through the night will be a couple of good, stiff belts.

KCFleming said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KCFleming said...

Even worse, the joke he tells about how he wants to "find out what she's eating" is his only warm spot in that entire clip, but it is not endearing because he misses the lady's point:

Her mom was alive at 105 not because of her diet, but because of a piece of machinery, a goddmaned pacemaker that Obama goes on to say she's too old to receive.

Did I miss something? Because it makes him look less human, and more of a complete bureaucratic emotionless pitiless self-centered dick.

Almost Ali said...

It was the sheer lack of street smarts that got us where we are today. Because if Obama voters had had any street smarts, they would have seen that Barack Obama was nothing more than a jive turkey... propagated by and for Affirmative Action.

Thank god Clint Eastwood has finally explained it to 'em, because no amount of education can teach street smarts. It's the macro-brain; you either have one or you don't. And without a macro-brain, you have to appeal to the lower sex-brain. But in order to do that, you have to be Clint Eastwood. Or in my case, Lindsay Lohan.

Freeman Hunt said...

I had forgotten about Obama's exchange with that woman. How horrible.

I agree with Coketown. It's Romney's business background that will serve him well in the town hall format. Sales is a completely different sort of training than church or college. In the latter two, you might feel you've done well even when you haven't. In sales, pitiless numbers measure how well you've done, and how you feel you've done makes no difference.

MadisonMan said...

My expectations are low. That way they can be met.

Which candidate's handlers are most likely to me saying this pre-"debate"? I'd say Obama's more than Romney's. Obama sucked last time, so he can't help but go up. Romney kicked butt last time, and the expectation must be that he'll do the same this time around. That's a high bar to clear when the MSM is clamoring for him to stumble.

ndspinelli said...

Do they sell box cognac?

Patrick said...

Zachary Paul Sire: I'd hardly call the edited clip dishonest. The President fills it in with a bunch of platitudes, but at the end of the day he wants to tell doctors how "to make better decisions." The full clip doesn't really help him.

Chip Ahoy said...

That clip does not make Obama sound personable. Not at all. Rather it withers my soul listening to the contemptible banality of the government functionary that believes himself smarter and more capable than anybody else. And you know what it make me want to do? It makes me me want to jump out of a capsule from the edge of space and reach velocities exceeding sound so if I were to yell my own ears would beat the sound I made in a race to my ears, a paradox too perplexing to contemplate, like this.

That is by b3ta member combatcameraman. He tells an interesting story in his profile there.

Kelly said...

Romney should be very afraid. In that clip Obama just exudes warmth, caring, empathy..no, not really. It's like he didn't listen to the woman's story, maybe he was thinking about missing his tee time because the woman droned on and on about her mother, who probably should have just died already.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Obama's biggest problem is that, other than bullshit, he has nothing to say.

He can't run on his record, he can't talk about all the failures, he can only whip up hysteria.

Still, Obama is a good bull-shitter. Esp with a fawning audience and a soft-ball throwing moderator/press.

Freeman Hunt said...

Shorter Obama: "Would your mother get a pacemaker under Obamacare? Please. That's what we call waste. No way in hell."

Lauderdale Vet said...

Chip, after your brining make a similarly spiced dry rub. Pat them off, dry rub them, vacuum seal them with a pat of irish butter and then cook them sous vide for about 4 hours. I like my water bath at 140F. Take them out, reserve the juices, pat them dry, then sear them golden in a little duck fat. Melt a little butter into the reserved juices and drizzle it over the pork for presentation. Very delicious.

Matt Sablan said...

How will he do in the Town Hall? That matters; will the debate preparers accidentally only pull partisan Democrats again? Sorry, but my good will towards town hall debate styles was really ruined after that fiasco.

AlanKH said...

Will the Dallas Cowboys make it to another Super Bowl before an actual peacemaker wins the Nobel peace Prize?

Chip Ahoy said...

bull shit

Both horns of a bull on the forehead. Different from a one horn of a cow on the side of the head

The horns must show so that the sign is not confused with other signs that tap the forehead like stupid and
dumb

And you can see how poop can be said a thousand ways. Titus would be quite imaginative here. The guy in the vid is doing is sideways, and I do see it that way, but when I say that word I try to gross the person out as much as possible. I make it plop on something or splat on something or splatter, or make a big mess. I'm very juvenile.

Anonymous said...

If we don't turn the ship around, we are headed to that "just take a pill future". I don't agree with the Green Party much these days, but I agree 100% with Jill Stein that it makes no sense to expand insurance coverage without expanding the number of doctors and hospitals (and everyone and everything else that heals people). We need more healthcare, not more health insurance.

Jim Howard said...

I question the whole premise of this 'debate'.

We have 80 blue state people who are supposedly 'uncommitted', but are interested enough in politics to apply to participate. Righttttttttt.

A liberal reporter will pick the actual questions, which must be submitted in advance.

There is an MOU between the candidates that limits the role of the moderator, but the moderator herself has said she's not a party to that agreement.

And this is a 'debate'?

Aridog said...

On topic...am I better off now than I was 4 years ago?

Hell frigging no...Michigan's monopoly government liquor store is still out of stock for Martell Cordon Bleu.

Bastards have plenty of Remy's Louis XIII Black Pearl to sell you though.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Will the Dallas Cowboys make it to another Super Bowl before an actual peacemaker wins the Nobel peace Prize?

LOL

nichole said...

What do you think of this? http://nrn.com/article/letter-restaurant-consumer