Even Chris Matthews recognizes that what West Point cadets are all about, Barack Obama is against. For Obama, the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York is “the enemy camp.”

Greta van Susteren has fun by feigning astonished incomprehension of Matthews’ remark, yet displays relish of the implicit sting as well.

I watched those cadets, they were young kids, men and women who are committed to serving their country professionally, it must be said, as officers, but I didn’t see much excitement. But among the older people there I saw, if not resentment, skepticism. I didn’t see a lot of warmth on that crowd out there that the president chose to address tonight. And I thought that was interesting. He went to maybe the enemy camp tonight to make his case. …I thought it was a strange venue.

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Ouch! indeed.

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Those West Point cadets didn’t like him. I saw several inconspicuously catching a nap in preference to listening to their commander in chief. Many cadets stared at Obama with looks of icy contempt.

The German news magazine Spiegel, on the other hand, really did not like him. I don’t know that I have ever read so scathing a review of a Presidential speech, not even in Southern newspapers commenting on remarks by Abraham Lincoln.

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America’s new strategy for Afghanistan. …

The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama’s speech would be well-received.

Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond “enthusiastically” to the speech. But it didn’t help: The soldiers’ reception was cool.

One didn’t have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama’s speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan — and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war — and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate. …

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama’s magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker

Hat tip to the Barrister.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews used to feel a thrill running up his leg at the sound of Barack Obama’s voice. Things have certainly changed. More recently, Matthews began finding Barack Obama reminding him of Jimmy Carter.

Newsbusters even includes the video.

The word these days is optics, visuals, signals. In the Carter presidency, the optics were not exactly robust, and Ronald Reagan rode that to a big victory in 1980. Is the Obama White House sending some Carteresque signals these days? Some see that in the deep bow to the Emperor of Japan, an unforced error say critics. Then there was, there was what happened in China: Obama got nothing in the way of concessions over there in spite of playing the polite visitor. And his effort to speak directly to the Chinese was jammed by the government. Third, that decision to try the terrorists up in that federal court in New York City. Again, nothing that had to be done, and critics say it shows that Obama, his team doesn’t understand this is a war we’re in. David, that’s the question. These optics are everything in a president. Carter used to carry that garment bag over his shoulder. This president is he making mistakes like in China like in Japan?

Even avowedly-liberal Bill Maher found Chris Matthews’ and Keith Olbermann’s commentary on Barack Obama’s acceptance speech unusual.

The coverage after, that I was watching, from MSNBC, I mean these guys were ready to have sex with him.

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If you believe Larry Sinclair, those guys have got a chance, too.

Josh Marshall and Think Progress were pretty amused at how Chris Matthews humiliated Kevin James, a quite obscure conservative talk radio personality and no Rush Limbaugh, who, alas! did not know what Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement actually involved, and was not very good at getting himself out of trouble.

But, then, at 4:53 minutes, Mark Finkelstein notes, the triumphant Matthews makes reference to the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole as “under Bush.”

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