I hadn’t really planned on listening to Obama’s speech tonight, I figured I’d catch the beginning and then change channels. However, I ended up stuck in traffic on I-65 South with 3 lanes closed due to resurfacing. It looked like semi-truck convention. Because of this I ended up listening to his whole speech. I think John at Powerline quite adequately summarizes my reaction to the Obami list of extravangzi. Pretty much the whole speech was your garden variety liberal speake which is nuttier than squirrel crap.

Was It Effective Demagoguery, Or Ineffective?

Obama outlined, in the vaguest terms possible, countless billions or trillions of new federal spending. How would he pay for it? By “closing corporate loopholes”–like what? The idea that Obama’s orgy of spending can be funded by “closing corporate loopholes” is frankly childish. By increasing taxes on the top 5% of taxpayers, i.e., precisely those who are grossly over-taxed already. The top 5% already pay 60% of all federal income taxes. And by “eliminating programs that no longer work.” Really? Which ones? No one seriously imagines that Obama–let alone the Democratic Congress!–has any intention of eliminating any significant government programs.

Obama says he wants to become independent of foreign oil in ten years. How? By tapping natural gas reserves. I wonder whether Obama, unlike Nancy Pelosi, understands that natural gas is a fossil fuel for which we must drill offshore, in ANWR, etc. There was perhaps some news here: Obama also came out for developing nuclear energy. But does anyone imagine that nuclear energy development would go forward in a Democratic Congress and White House? In one of his many cheap shots, Obama said that we import three times as much foreign oil as when John McCain went to Washington. That’s no doubt true, because the Democratic Party has enacted legislation that makes it impossible to develop our domestic resources.

I along with John will be waiting breathlessly for the townhall debates between McCain and Obama.