Bloodless
I’ve resisted until now much of the recent punditry that has centered around whether President Obama has been expressing the necessary passion, outrage and empathy that one had hoped for or even expected from their president throughout such jarring domestic turmoil. Among the magpies perched on the wire of passion patrol is one Michael Wolff, who recently reduced Obama to a B-team Jimmy Carter, and worse, took a scalpel to Obama’s distinguishing if not primary asset — his ability to talk his way, articulately and intelligently, out of anything.
In fact, Wolff proclaims now, “the man can’t talk worth a damn.” Plus:
“He’s cold; he’s prickly; he’s uncomfortable; he’s not funny; and he’s getting awfully tedious.
He thinks it’s all about him. That we want him for himself—that he doesn’t have to seduce, charm, surprise, show some skin.”
I’m still not convinced of this ego-centric caricature, but one thing I could recognize for myself in tonight’s televised press conference: Obama was bland and uninspiring. Bloodless is the word that repeats in my head. I do think he can still “talk worth a damn,” though I’m sure many a magpie will say he was wonkish to a fault tonight. Nevertheless, his critics have long attempted to make the “detached” label stick, and I’m afraid it might finally work — if tonight was any forecast.
Obama lacked the guts and fire and energy that is in such ready supply today over the radio waves, on the editorial pages, town council meetings — in the unemployment lines. Glenn Beck was crying again all over his show last month and we are still unsure why. If Obama meant to come off soothing, he was nearer to tone-deaf. After a television interview two days ago where he was accused of being “punch drunk” for some seemingly inappropriate giggling, this could spell PR quicksand come tomorrow.
The thing is, he was given a swell chance, more than once, to project himself straight out, over the heads of the equally detached, annoyingly conventional echo chamber that is the Washington press corps and into our living rooms to convince us otherwise. The most opportune was when Chuck Todd of GE-owned NBC/MSNBC asked what the American people could do to sacrifice in these fierce economic times (it was the second such question by Todd in two press conferences in which he seemed to suggest — or wanted the President to suggest – that the onus of failure and recovery was on “the people”).
Obama didn’t fall for the bait, he said something to the effect that people were sacrificing their share already, and with absolutely no change in facial expression, threw out a couple of rather lame references to people working without pay so that co-workers wouldn’t be laid off, and cutting back to send kids to college. But really — three taps on the keyboard will get you much more devastating ammo than that. Previously hard working people standing in line at unprecedented levels for emergency food assistance, waiting months for unemployment checks because of backlogs (this is happening in more and more states), not to mention forced “worker furloughs,” being the new craze in cost cutting measures sweeping both the public and private sectors — if he wanted sacrifice, he could have rolled out more weepers than Irene Dunne during the Great Depression.
Acknowledging this, and showing he was at least a little perturbed, if not passionately resolved, would have been a good first step in inspiring the nation’s flagging confidence and staving off the “Wolffes.” Short of calling him a “zombie,” I’d say he was more of an automaton tonight, which is good if you’re a big fan of Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’d say most of us prefer Captain Kirk, and there is a reason for that.
The idea that what Americans want in this time of crisis is a President who emulates the nation’s “radio shows and editorial pages” is about the most bizarre and out of touch analysis I have ever read or seen. About the LAST thing the public wants is what passes for discourse in our nation’s media. They want steady, they want reassuring, they want competent. That’s the sense Obama gives them, and in fact works hard to convey. Most of us without idealogical blinders can actually see Obama try to lower the temperature in some of his responses, particularly to questions that cross deep into the inane. I assure you that his evening’s press conference left people feeling even worse about the press, and better about Obama. This is normally a pretty rational site, but I think everyone in Washington or who writes about Washington has lost whatever clue they once might have had about what is really going on in this country. If you think a foaming-at-the-mouth President Obama is what this country needs or is looking for, you need a vacation, or another line of work.
Obama’s aloofness might seem silly or indicative of some character flaw, and for all I know it is, but it is also very shrewd politically.
Most Americans want to believe that our economic crisis has it’s roots in a technical economic failing rather than in a lapse in national character. Obama props up that myth by not making appeals to personal responsibility or acknowledging that anyone other than the very wealthy might share culpability for what has happened. If we could only get the right programs in place and administer them effectively,I hear him saying, things would improve.
Well, no.
The problems we have are the result of people living (and borrowing) beyond their means and allowing Congress to live off pork rather than doing oversight. Those are personal matters, and they’re ethical matters, too, since such attitudes express the belief that happiness in the here and now is more important than the next generation.
Obama is trying to quell anger, and America is looking for an excuse to be angry at someone other than herself. They deserve each other.
Obama is quite Clinton-like in his rhetorical style. At one point he created a false dilemma, pitting his smörgåsbord of spending programs against simply doing nothing. No one called him on this of course. The government can simply decide to contract a bit and divert funds to reducing the debt. But the concept of the government opting to reduce spending is as unthinkable to the President as human sacrifice.
The President didn’t answer several questions beyond changing the subject to topics his talking points addressed. It’s the kind of thing one expects of first time congressional candidates. This is a brittle man, out of his depth.
Let me agree with Sheldon, about the bizarre thing. But I got there differently. I think I just read that someone is damning their own guy with faint praise, inviting me to be either a magpie, or do a moral job of giving the guy a break.
So let me start there. I don’t want a vaudville tap dancer. My first priority is not a smooth talker. I like the availability to the press, and the solid craftmanship with which he delivered his message. He did not disgrace the USA, nor the Democratic party.
I am as anxious as the next guy to picture him as someone else other than the architect of the biggest theft in the history of mankind. As the destroyer of the free market system, and the protector of governmental corruption.
I don’t get my Glenn Beck from media matters, so I know precisely what his point was during the tears.
I don’t get my Oprah or Jesse Jackson from “hate radio”, so I know precisely what they were doing, when they saw Obama’s inaugural through their own tears.
I understand the reasons why teachers and press corp and actors and mass media are dominated by liberals. I understand that, rather than being an “echo chamber”, some of them are realizing the damage that they have done to this country. Others are still pretending to be capable of “asking the tough questions”, and pretending to understand “workingman’s conservatism”. The net effect is that they just look “detached”.
The LIBERAL LIE will say “surplus” to describe the end of Clinton’s term, as if we don’t know the difference between a President and a Congress in crafting a budget. They will expect that we don’t see the difference between the first 6 years of the Bush term, and the last 2 years, and we won’t know who was at the helm.
For some of us magpies, our favorite William Shatner was as Denny Crane, when confronted by a mugger in the parking lot. As the thief lay bleeding and screaming on the pavement, Denny Crane laughs and says, “Thank God for guns…”.
Many of us will send our dollars to the Democrat opponent of any corrupt Republican piece of trash who voted for TARP 1. Particularly those who promised us NO PORK and NO EARMARKS. We are not strong enough to clean America yet, but we can start in our own back yard.
My initial take on Obama was that he was an orator of obvious gifts, and probably the most motivating political speaker since JFK. I also thought he was a talented politician with an instinctive sense of tone and mood. I had questions, and still do, about his leadership and execution.
Now I’m not so sure about the political skills. I’m amazed he’s come out with the ‘we’re seeing glimmers of progress’ line – way premature. He’s just saddled himself with a ‘the economy is fundamentally sound’ moment that might easily come back to haunt. His ‘the dollar is strong’ line is also a mistake. Whatever strength the dollar has is due to its legacy as the world’s reserve currency. In truth, the US is borrowing way, way too much, and the dollar is threatened.
I think Obama with his teleprompter is the anti-Bush, appealing to his base of anti-Bushites. I prefer my King not to have the charismatic capabilities of Hitler. The complaints people have in the media about Obama must be a confession that they see him as an actor who must play the part of lover, mother and father along with physician and clown. An actor who must appeal not to reason but passion of a dependent people.
I wonder if his display of detachment is honesty coming through, or is it a manifestation of his inability to think on his feet? Most of the Republicans in the last eight years appealed to the sentiments of the electorate. It is also how Obama was elected. It is beneficial to the regime that people don’t talk about the policies but how Obama comes off. I’m sure millions of people lay in bed every night worrying how Obama comes off just like they did Bush rather than concerning themselves with what these politicians have done. The pundits found something on their intellectual level to argue about without being called racist.
‘The problems we have are the result of people living (and borrowing) beyond their means and allowing Congress to live off pork rather than doing oversight. ‘
Stop blaming the people. They were encouraged to do all that for one thing. But more importantly they never would have got the credit or the loans if it wasn’t for the people on Wall Street. If a bank lends someone making 30 grand a year $300000 to buy a house that in a normal market would sell for $150000 how is that the fault of people wanting to live beyond thier means? Banks and other financial institutions used new laws and accounting tricks to keep risk off their books. This allowed them to avoid keeping reserves and they loaned those out too. Now when bills are due they don’t have the money they should have set aside. And you blame the guy they advertised to and to which they sold a loan. Anything at all to keep this problem away from republican responsibility right?
‘Glenn Beck was crying again all over his show last month and we are still unsure why. ‘
It’s called theatre. He’s an entertainer that’s got you guys believing he”s a source of information.
I remember reading in a history class about how weak the late 19th century presidents were and that they were essentially front men for the real “deciders” of their administrations. It seems like we’ve had a lot of that lately.
Obama is as inexperienced and out of his depth as Bush was when he started. People like him, but they liked Bush, too. PJB had a great line in an old article about Bush, where he asked something like, “How much will America have to pay for this man’s education?” The answer, apparently, is in the $trillions. Obama sounds a lot smarter than Bush, so maybe it won’t take as long, but it’s still going to hurt.
Rawshark, are you sticking with your statement in a previous comment that you’re a lifelong Republican?
Are we all watching the same thing?
“That whole philosophy of persistence, by the way, is one that I’m going to be emphasizing again and again in the months and years to come as long as I’m in this office. I’m a big believer in persistence.
I think that, when it comes to domestic affairs, if we keep on working at it, if we acknowledge that we make mistakes sometimes, and that we don’t always have the right answer, and we’re inheriting very knotty problems, that we can pass health care, we can find better solutions to our energy challenges, we can teach our children more effectively, we can deal with a very real budget crisis that is not fully dealt with in my — in my budget at this point, but makes progress.”
You’re all such an MTV crowd, wanting flash and style. ooh, it’s boring, oh he doesn’t have an answer after 2 months, he’s a failure.
The Republican party is doomed if it doesn’t get a better grasp of strategy and long term vision. For what it’s worth, the contract with america was probably the last Republican Vision that had any grounds in long term strategy and vision.
Personally I think the Republican Party is in a death spiral and is too busy trying to destroy what remains of the moderate wing to come up with any cohesive long term plans. Maybe I’m wrong, Or maybe we’ll see a competitive 3rd party in the next 8 to 12 years.
This CANADIAN insists that President Obama is clearly a dull talker because he has no great ideas on matters that matter to men.
He has nothing to say much less say it well.
He is just a affirmative action recipent from the Democratic party. His moral claim to be president is because he represents the claim of blacks to have one of theirs be president. H is no more intellectually able then President Bush was.
The dull and unintelligence of this person is being to be noticed by even the most passionate liberal Democrat.
In his press thing he did sarcastically complain about criticism from the press. I guess they who built you up can knock you down. Obama hitting Rush may not silence press criticism after all.
If Obama being black is the real reason he deserved to be elected then he can say the success of a black presidency is the cause of all especially a liberal press..
I guess some press folk are starting to want to pretend to the prestige of a press without partisanship or they just want to be noticed from the fawning herd.
@rawshark,
Why on earth should I stop blaming the people? Are they innocents? Are they under 18? Were they forced to take bad loans? I’m all for holding the execs at the banks and the enablers in Washington accountable for their share in this, too, but the fact remains that if every American (shoot, even half of them) had taken the time to self-educate and self-discipline in the area of finance, this crisis simply would not exist.
Ordinary people are powerful, far more so than those on top. If we are chastened by these difficult times and adopt some better habits, we can not only get out of this, but also immunize ourselves against another such recession for a long time. The President could help by offering some encouragement in this regard, but that isn’t in his nature.