Ugh.

That's my main comment. I'm too sick too form words.

In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country. The answer is not only temporary relief, but schools that teach every child, and job skills that bring upward mobility, and more opportunities to own a home and start a business.

This part really grossed me out. He spent two sentences talking about Katrina (not nearly enough in my opinion, and notice how he says "felt," not "been"), and then he moved right on to how we need to better educate the people there. Did you know that hurricanes looked at the average level of education of a city before picking a place to hit? I did not. Nor did I know that upwardly mobile folk are safe from hurricanes or other natural disasters.

He then went on to talk about the AIDS problem in America and how 50% of everyone in America with AIDS is black. It's not so much what he says here, it's the order he put things together, asking people to make associations. I teach writing; I know about these things. They are planned and conscious.

My Translation:

Katrina was bad. The demographic that suffered the most was black people, but it's because the black people in New Orleans were uneducated. They have AIDS anyway, so don't worry about them. They are dumb, poor, and dying.

He didn't talk about rebuilding.

Did anyone else hear what I did? Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm sticking with Kanye West's original statement at the NBC fundraiser after the hurricane.

Anyway, it grossed me out, but I realize that I have an inability to take what he says at face value, especially when he speaks so smoothly. There weren't many grammatical gaffes during the speech, which means it was well practiced, and not off the cuff. Don't tell me that the speechwriters were not aware of the sequiturs.

Another thing that had me gagging on my popcorn was the "addicted to oil" bit. If he really believes we're addicted to oil, then why has he been so pro drilling in ANWR? People who are trying to help heroine addicts don't do so by trying to find another dealer, do they? No, they give them methadone.

What's the methadone for oil? Alternative energy sources. Let's hear about that, Mr. Prez.

What a joke.