Did Obama Help Hillary?

Contrary to what seems to be the conventional wisdom, I don’t think President Obama is a particularly good speaker. This is partly because he is lost without a teleprompter, partly because he has no gift for the memorable turn of phrase, and partly because he rarely talks about anything except himself. Think about it–when has an Obama speech ever moved public opinion on any issue? Never. If he has ever been effective at the podium, it has been in promoting his own candidacies.

Which brings us to Obama’s performance last night. He was speaking, ostensibly, in support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, but as usual with our president, his speech was mostly about him. Grabien has compiled this montage of Obama’s 119 self-references. To be fair, some of them are “we.” But you get the point: whatever critics may have thought of Obama’s performance, one wonders whether it did Mrs. Clinton much good.

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