In Westen’s world, the important difference between Obama’s oratory on the campaign trail and in the Oval Office resides with the speaker. A better way to look at it would be to focus on the changes in audience, context, and subject matter. Viewed that way, the apparent paradox—how can Obama’s rhetorical power be limited as president, when it was central to his candidacy?—is no paradox at all.
Campaign Desk
11:04 AM - September 13, 2011
Rhetorical Differences
Drew Westen misses the constraints on Obama’s presidential oratory
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CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
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A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Oh, what fun it is to re-arrange deck chairs on the Obama.
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 14 Sep 2011 at 12:33 AM
So once O stopped talking about his favorite subject - himself - it all started falling apart? Makes sense to me...
#2 Posted by JLD, CJR on Wed 14 Sep 2011 at 01:41 AM
What most people, including you, Greg, seem not to have noticed about Obama is that there's very little evidence that he wished to do much more than reestablish the status quo that had existed before the financial meltdown. His campaign rhetoric may have been soaring, but his specific policy proposals were not significantly different than anything President Snowe or President Collins might have authored.
The point at which presidential oratory might have made a difference was at the beginning of his presidency, when a shell-shocked public would likely have been amenable to a more progressive agenda and, with the GOP on the verge of collapse, more immune to Republican shrieking.
But Obama isn't a progressive politician. He has adopted the Republican rhetoric of supply-side economics and social insurance program "reform." The people he tapped to fix the economic crisis came from the ranks of the people who helped to engineer it. His health insurance reform program includes a mechanism that is little more than an extortion racket run on behalf of for-profit insurance companies.
All of those things, with the exception of the anti-New Deal policies, were forecast during the campaign, along with a militaristic bent that was on display in both his 2007 Foreign Affairs magazine essay and his Nobel Prize lecture.
I think you can find instances where sustained presidential rhetoric during times of crisis has proved effective. What's unreasonable is to expect presidential rhetoric in support of ineffective policy to galvanize the public and motivate legislators. And it's particularly unreasonable to expect much of the somewhat half-hearted and sporadic motivational efforts Obama has led.
#3 Posted by Weldon Berger, CJR on Wed 14 Sep 2011 at 10:22 AM