January 17, 2010 4:39 PM
Obama's oratory: a failure to connect
Quote of the week from Michael Gerson: Whatever happened to Obama's oratory?
People once thought Obama could sound eloquent reading the phone book. Now, it often sounds as though he is.
In context:
In Obama's running seminar, a flawed thesis and flawed antithesis are always resolved by the synthesis of Obama himself. Obama manages to be both academic and arrogant. His arrival is "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."But Obama's largest rhetorical failure has come at times of crisis - when a president's words matter most, and the time to craft them is most limited. His reactions to the Fort Hood murders and the Christmas Day attack were oddly disconnected from the emotions of the country he represents. His speech at Fort Hood was strong on paper but delivered with all the passion of remarks to the Chamber of Commerce. His recent White House speech on the terrorist threat was bureaucratic and bloodless. Both grief and resolve seem beyond his rhetorical range. People once thought Obama could sound eloquent reading the phone book. Now, it often sounds as though he is.
Read more at the Charlotte Observer.
I thought this was a great analysis. I had noticed Obama's rhetorical approach - a more adept spinoff from Clinton's triangulation. So this is why Obama sounds so crazily flat when a catastrophe comes along: he simply cannot identify with the American people but sees himself above us all.
The picture above is from Obama's 72-hour delayed what?-you-had-to-take-me-away-from-my-well-deserved-vacation speech concerning the Christmas Day terrorist near-miss over Detroit. Too cool to put on a tie. Why do we get the feeling he'd rather not have been bothered?
A complete emotional disconnect - as though he has Asperger's Syndrome or something. Something seriously wrong.
Just thinking out loud.
Posted in Obama Nation | Permalink
Comments
Meanwhile, today's WaPo publishes something about the President's "let me be clear" catchphrase:
Plenty of others have taken note of this habit, but they usually dismiss it as a standard time-buying device, like Bill Clinton's "make no mistake" or Richard Nixon's eerily similar "let me make one thing perfectly clear." But Obama's declarations of clarity are far more than a little presidential throat-clearing.....In a presidency in which everything is murkier than Obama could have imagined, the "let me be clear" preface has become a signal that what follows will be anything but.
Posted by: Peony Moss | January 17, 2010 6:12 PM
Seriously, I've got to ask you this. Why are you using Asperger's syndrome as a way to attack people? Do you think people with this syndrome are lesser than other people?
[Not at all, Ben. I know a couple of people with Asperger's and they are good people. However, I do believe that just as being short might limit one's ability to excel at basketball, having Asperger's might limit one's ability to be a successful president.]
Posted by: Ben | January 18, 2010 9:53 PM
