The Oval Office Oil Speech: What's Ailing Barack Obama?

I want very much to really like President Obama. I understood from the beginning of his quest that his politics and mine would not be in concord. He's far too centrist for me at a time when we need a heavy counterbalancing from the left. Our country has drifted dangerously to the right and it is destroying the national fabric, our prosperity, and threatening our future. 

But, center left is better than center right or radical right, so like many more leftist liberals, I jumped on board the Obama love train.

Last night's oil speech failed on a number of levels and succeeded on a small handful. First, it failed because Obama made no real personal connection between himself and the people, especially the people of the Gulf. 

Most adults have felt some form of loss in their lives. Loved ones, friends, a childhood home, a few acres of woods lost to development, a building demolished, a way of life vanished. 

And it is there in the shadow-land between sympathy and empathy that the President stumbled. He came across as sympathetic, but certainly not a man who could empathize with the dark plight of the watermen, the fear in retirees, the worry in the Gulf's resort trade, the hand-wringing moms and pops waiting for business to pick up. 

He violated the first rule of good writing: "Don't explain it, demonstrate it." He talked with shrimpers - good for him - but he didn't give us the feeling, the sense of dread and despair we all know lurks down there. 

In short, the speech felt technocratic rather than visceral.

On the future, the President was even weaker:

"Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny -- our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there. We know we'll get there."

If you're not sure, Mr. President, how can the rest of us be? 

Contrast this with Churchill's "We will fight them on the beaches speech."

"We shall fight them on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, 

we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight them on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills..."

Or with John F. Kennedy's "Moon Speech."

"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." 

Or even the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

"The object of government is the welfare of the people. Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us." The New Nationalism speech, Osawatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910

These ringing speeches, like all great ones throughout history, relied upon bold affirmations that a certain thing WILL happen. There was no glimmer that fighting the Nazis to the last person, going to the moon, or conserving our shared natural patrimony would ever NOT happen.

If we were to take Kennedy's speech and plug in new goals for a new time, we can see how leaden President Obama's words were last night:

"First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of achieving energy independence. No single technological project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range improvement of our economy and environment; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

Further, in the next few days I will lay out for the Congress my vision for reaching such a difficult goal. We must begin now, we must reach the goal with no more delays or risk becoming a second-class nation whose dim future will be in marked contrast to our glorious past."

Even if we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there? Nonsense. Tell us how we'll get there and we will surely get there.