Rhetorical Rhetoric

The run up to the much anticipated commencement speech at Notre Dame drove me crazy. There were people who were going to protest. So what! Someone always protests? Right? Isn't that why we have free speech so that opposing views can express their side of the argument? Then why the uproar? When President Bush gave his speech at Notre Dame the media reports sounded as if they were encouraging the protesters. In our new era, protests directed at the sitting president are reported on as if they were evil heretics. The best laughs were hearing people actually say "These protests were disrespectful to the office of the president" and that "He is our president, and our leader, and everyone needs to get behind him". OMFG! This little episode doesn't even amount to a mosquito bite in comparison to the daily hate and wrath the last president had to endure.

So the time had finally arrived. After the media build up, reports were now coming in that the one true Lord Obama was going to address the issue of abortion head on. The subtext in the narration sounded like "now you silly protesters are going to get it! You have angered a powerful god".

I did not see the speech in its entirety, but the written and video excerpts released show an abundance of bombastic platitudes that seem contradictory and inevitably goes no where. In an AP Report they wrote

Obama acknowledged that "no matter how much we want to fudge it ... the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable." But he still implored the University of Notre Dame's graduating class and all in the U.S. to stop "reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It's a way of life that always has been the Notre Dame tradition."

Caricature? Did he say someone with whom you disagree should not be reduced to a caricature? Who is he talking too? You Catholics get the message, right? Even though people who disagreed with President Bush bitch slapped him for eight straight years, and even though the media is laughing at your silly ideal about human life, it is your duty as Christians to turn the other cheek. Don't do unto us, what we have done unto you.

The president ceded no ground. But he said those on each side of the debate "can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

"So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term."

As someone who would quite literally not be here today if abortions were legal in the 1960's, let me say "you don't get it Bro!". Anecdotal evidence tells us that the few who experience the moral pangs of the choice overwhelmingly don't proceed or are scarred with feelings of guilt for the rest of their lives. The majority of who carry out the act are selfish, unaware, unrepentant creatures whose comfort trumps any other consideration.

Making adoptions more available? "You really don't get it Bro!". The adoption options in the united States have become non-existent precisely because of abortion. I know you don't want to hear it, but it has to do with supply and demand. Really! My friends who are looking to or have adopted infants have to go to Russia or China to adopt an infant. There are no infants available for adoption in the United States. My friends spend tens of thousands of dollars attempting to adopt from these countries. It's expensive, and it is physically and emotionally exhausting for them. In some cases, their employers are subsidizing some of the costs.

Remember that you heard it here first. The pending legislation for Intergalactic Healthcare will include provisions for those seeking adoption to get your tax money to travel to other countries in order to adopt an infant.

Like everything else so far, his grandiloquence does not even amount to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic".