Here is the sentence: “My view is also that nobody’s above the law, and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen, but that, generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.”
Here's the diagram:
OK, I watched part of the press conference the other day. It was a colossal, crashing BORE. I wished I'd thought of diagramming sentences then to stay awake. As it was, I soon watched something else.
Hey, Bush's press conferences weren't that great either, but Obama's rambling yet lofty and sanctimonious style is beginning to bother me. A press conference isn't the same thing as a speech. He's good at delivering big rhetorical set-pieces (though I'm also beginning to tire of the banalities buried under a glossy verbal flair). But I'm beginning to see that Obama's not very good at the give-and-take of interactive press conferences. He doesn't actually answer questions! He takes questions (sort of) and then starts rambling on and on about the topic. He sounds -- and I would know -- like an overly serious and thus overly boring professor who not only can't inspire his students but also can't clarify the basic material. He (and such professors) give off an air of "I don't need to answer questions. They're petty. You're rather petty for asking. No, I'm the expert, so all you need to do is absorb what I say." It comes across as rather condescending. I found myself rooting for Jake Tapper and Major Garrett to pile on.
And the journalists SHOULD be piling on. BE journalists. The kid gloves should be coming off, because by any reasonable estimation, the Obama Administration's handling of economic policy has been a total farce, and the new budget proposal is insane. Folks are beginning to balk -- from some Congressional Democrats to plain ordinary citizen-taxpayers. And weirdly or not, Obama's new big problem now is his apparent inability to communicate with people -- any people, much less forge or foster a meaningful relationship with them. He's managed to alienate everyone from the British Prime Minister to the folks in the Special Olympics. I'm not sure anybody quite knows what he says versus what he means, but the floundering is becoming obvious.
I'm not the only noticing. Check out Politico's Obama translation: what he said versus what he meant. Maybe. I still don't understand how he can support the new ludicrous budget with one breath and, in the next breath, wax eloquent about being responsible and "doing everything we can to reduce the deficit." Say WHAT?
Obama's complicated sentences make great grammatical fun for diagrams, but they are hopeless for leading in a time of crisis.
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