Presidents have made use of the Saturday radio address for several administrations now, usually to press for their policies, to defend an appointment, or to send a message on foreign policy.  People looked with great anticipation to the weekly addresses of Barack Obama for his rhetorical skill.  Who knew he’d be more Desi Arnaz than FDR?  Obama went into re-reruns on Saturday:

In a last-minute re-recording of his weekly address, President Obama praised the House for passing the energy bill on Friday and pressured the Senate to quickly do the same.

The president delivered the same exact speech he gave Thursday in the Rose Garden calling on the House to pass the bill – he just adjusted the tense and changed a few turns of phrase.

“Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a historic piece of legislation that will open the door to a clean energy economy and a better future for America,” Obama said in his weekly address.

(“Right now, the House of Representatives is moving towards a vote of historic proportions on a piece of legislation that will open the door to a new clean energy economy,” Obama said in the Rose Garden on Thursday.)

That’s the best Obama can do – rehash a speech from earlier in the week?  Remember when people thought that this was the era of genius in the White House?  We’re in the sixth month of the Obama presidency, and already he’s run out of things to say.  George Bush may have tortured syntax and waterboarded vocabulary, but he could handle more than one topic at a time.

Besides, most of Obama’s speeches sound the same anyway.  We have a great pressing need for the government to run [fill in the blank], which will save money while we spend trillions of dollars we don’t have.  Oh, and I hate deficits, which are the fault of everyone but me. Maybe he should just YouTube that and stick with it for the summer.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

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