The New Improved Obama

[jamwadmag]

[Transcript Glenn Beck Show May 7th:]


GLENN BECK, HOST: Obama takes big steps toward securing the nomination, and he`s doing so by saying exactly what America wants to hear.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Compassion and prosperity aren`t liberal values. They are not conservative values. They are American values."

BECK: I`ll explain, as if I need to, how Obama is one of the slickest politicians have I`ve ever seen.


Let me just tell you how great Barack Obama was last night. Right? I mean, he lost a narrow margin in Indiana -- like that`s a good thing -- he lost by two points in Indiana. He won decisively over Hillary in North Carolina, a huge 14-point. Leads in the state, leads in delegates and he leads in the popular vote.

So here`s "The Point" tonight. Barack Obama, I don`t know who this guy was last night. This is the new Barack Obama. He`s the slickest politician I have ever seen. And here`s how I got there.

The highlight of Obama`s big North Carolina win was -- it had to be his speech. I was talking to one of my producers this morning as we were getting ready for the radio show. And I said to him, if I were 20, 25 years younger and I was in college and I hadn`t seen the political game played over and over so many times and I didn`t read, you know, I`d be out campaigning for Obama.

But unfortunately, I`m old, burdened by wisdom. I do read. So I guess we have to take the speech apart and uncover the new and improved Barack Obama.

OBAMA: We also believe that we have a larger responsibility to one another as Americans. That America is a place. That America is the place where you can make it if you try. That no matter how much money you start with, or where you come from or who your parents are, opportunity is yours if you`re willing to reach for it and work for it.

BECK: That`s fantastic. I mean, I was like, yes, yes. No matter if you`ve gone to Princeton, or you were forced to go to Columbia, you can make it in America.

Unfortunately, the day before his wife said that there was -- and I`m quoting -- a veil of -- hang on, it`s "a veil of impossibility" that is suffering all of us here in America. I don`t think those two ideas work together.


OBAMA: Somewhere along the line, between all the bickering and the influence peddling and the game playing of the last few decades, Washington and Wall Street have lost touch with these core values, these America values. And while I honor John McCain`s service to his country, his ideas for America are out of touch with these core values.


BECK: I mean, so is Karl Marx. I hate to point that out. But this guy is great. I mean, this was a fantastic speech.

Then, he got to my favorite part. This is where Barack Obama is playing the martyr, telling everybody that "No matter what, no matter what they do to me, no matter what the man does and gangs up on me, I will never give up."

OBAMA: I`m not naive. We`ve already seen it. The same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn`t agree with all their ideas. The same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives, by pouncing on every and association and fake controversy in the hopes that the media will play along.


BECK: I`m telling you, he says everything you want to hear. Except the pouncing on associations and fake controversies, because we pay attention to the news. I thought to myself, I wonder what he`s talking about. Could it be the 20 years Obama spent marinating in Reverend Jeremiah Wright`s radical, anti-American sermons in a church that Oprah Winfrey left after only two years?

Or was it the -- the denouncing of the man who baptized his children, and married him. But then he distanced himself when it was politically convenient.

Or could it be his intimate association with William Ayers? This is the Weather Underground terrorist that bombed the Pentagon in the `70s, the man who in 2001, stomped on the America flag and who opened his home to Barack Obama, he and his wife, as he launched his political career.

Or maybe it was Barack`s deep personal and professional relationship with Tony Rezko, the Chicago slum lord who`s been indicted for taking kickbacks and influence peddling. I`m not -- I`m not sure which fake controversy he was talking about there. But we`ll get to the bottom of it, I`m sure.

So tonight, America, here`s what you need to know. Speeches are talk, and talk is cheap. It`s actions that matter. Barack Obama has finally stopped starring in his own version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." And from here on in, it is pure politics, and Obama is a natural.

Now it`s time for you, the citizen, to read between the lines. A gifted speaker and skillful politician does not a president make.

COMMENT: As one commentator said, when Bill Clinton listens to Obama speak, "Bill shakes his head because "Obama out-Bill Clinton'd, Bill Clinton!" ha ha