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CNN: Obama speech too ‘professorial’ for his target audience to understand
CNN, “Language guru: Obama speech too ‘professorial’ for his target audience”
President Obama’s speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.
Tuesday night’s speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.
Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence “added some difficulty for his target audience,” Payack said.
He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: “That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s secretary of energy.”
“A little less professorial, less academic and more ordinary,” Payack recommended. “That’s the type of phraseology that makes you (appear) aloof and out of touch.”
CNN article continues here.
Obama skipped Gulf memorial service to attend fund raiser for Barbara Boxer
CNN, “President attended fundraiser during Gulf memorial service”
by Abby Livingston
According his official schedule, President Obama did not attend the May 25 memorial service in Jackson, Mississippi for the workers who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion because he was en route to a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in San Francisco.
At Thursday’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked why Obama did not attend the service. The president’s spokesman answered, “I’d have to look at the schedule. I don’t know the answer.”
CNN examined the president’s schedule for that day, and according to it, the president left the White House at 2:55 p.m. EST en route to Andrews Air Force Base for the cross-country flight to the San Francisco fundraiser.
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Al and Tipper Gore to separate
CNN, “Al and Tipper Gore decide to separate”
Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have sent an e-mail to family friends announcing a mutual decision to separate, a longtime family friend told CNN.
“We are announcing today that after a great deal of thought and discussion, we have decided to separate,” the message said. “This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration. We ask for respect for our privacy and that of our family, and we do not intend to comment further.”
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail but declined to comment further.
CNN article continues here.
CNN: Tea Party pushes the “boundaries of free speech”
CNN, “Experts: Angry rhetoric protected, but can be disturbing”
by Eliott C. McLaughlin
Letting disgruntled citizens vent is important to national security, experts say, but some messages emanating from angry Americans in recent weeks have pressed the boundaries of free speech.
Politicians have reported slurs as well as threatening letters and phone calls. Congressmen have reported vandalism to their offices. One said he was spit on. Another said his brother’s gas line was cut after a Tea Party member posted his address online.
Tea Party leaders denounce the threats and deny involvement, pointing to fringe elements — not Tea Party members, per se, but groups with degrees of overlapping ideologies.
CNN article continues here.
CNN reporter admits that Tea Partiers are diverse and family-oriented
CNN, “Reporter’s notebook: What really happens at Tea Party rallies”
by Shannon Travis
When it comes to the Tea Party movement, the stereotypes don’t tell the whole story.
Here’s what you often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: offensive posters blasting President Obama and Democratic leaders; racist rhetoric spewed from what seems to be a largely white, male audience; and angry protesters rallying around the Constitution.
Case in point: During the health care debate last month, opponents shouted racial slurs at civil rights icon Georgia Rep. John Lewis and one person spit on Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. The incidents made national headlines, and they provided Tea Party opponents with fodder to question the movement.
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Tea Party member makes a fool of CNN and Alan Grayson (how hard can it be?)
Above: Rep. Alan Grayson sporting a monopoly tie to represent the non-existent money his party is spending.
Reid casts wrong vote on health care for second time
CNN, “Reid casts wrong vote on health care for second time”
by Ted Barrett
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly called out “no” Thursday when asked for his vote on the health care reconciliation bill, setting the chamber howling with laughter.
Reid voted the wrong way when the clerk called for his vote, realized his error and quickly changed his vote to “yes.”
“He did it again,” someone said amid laughter.
Reid, who spent months persuading fellow senators to vote “yes” on President Obama’s top domestic priority, made the same mistake December 24 when voting on the original health care bill.
CNN article continues here.
Even CNN can’t deny: Poll finds majority says government a threat to citizens’ rights
CNN, “CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens’ rights”
by Paul Steinhauser
A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.
The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.
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