Obama's Predictable Playbook — how to write a speech for Obama

Thanks in part to Obama’s open embrace of the rules for radicals of Saul Alinsky, his tactics and strategies are becoming increasingly clear and predictable, as I have noted in my Obama Prevarication Predictor posts, so I am now inaugurating a series of posts on its corollary, “Obama’s Predictable Playbook.”

Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review Online, has sorted out the chapter on how to write “An Obama Speech in 13 Easy Steps” in Obama’s Predictable Playbook — click here to read the explanations for each item — and if you read it alongside a transcript of Obama’s Sept. 9, 2009, speech on Obamacare to Congress, you will howl at the aptness of each point:

Everyone marvels at Barack Obama’s rhetorical prowess. But don’t be overly bedazzled. With these 13 easy steps, you, too, can give a Barack Obama speech.

1) Create a false center.…

2) Scorn ideology….

3) Talk about your openness to ideas from opponents….

4) Embrace empty symbolic measures as a show of reasonableness….

5)  Make lawyerly distinctions too subtle for most people to notice….

6) Say things just because they sound good….

7) Dissemble as necessary….

8) Make the price right….

9) Never admit any cost or downside to what you are proposing….

10) Couple attacks on your critics as unworthy hacks with calls for civility. If you favor “a civil conversation,” you can better dismiss your opponents for their “bickering” and “games.” ….

11) Be sure to say something like “this is the time.” ….

12) At least once a speech, keep talking over the applause. This is inspiring.

13) Load it up in a teleprompter. And repeat as necessary.