We all know he can read and deliver a great speech. His teleprompter skills are unparalleled, and his ability to mesmerize us with soaring rhetoric has some even suggesting there’s some kind of creepy NLP code in his speechifying.
But with every Major Speech™ on the economic meltdown Obama delivers, we are left with the sinking realization that it’s now a matter of diminishing returns and too little detail. Again.
Today’s down and directionless market seems to agree.
And so does Clive Crook of the Financial Times, in this excellent piece on Obama’s much-heralded but little-effective State of the Union (or whatever it was) speech last night.
"Much as I admire Obama, the thought that would not leave me alone as I listened to his speech was "diminishing returns". It was a good campaign speech, beautifully delivered, and helped by the very flattering comparison with Bobby Jindal’s weirdly robotic response. (How do they get people to accept this assignment?) But it was a speech we have now heard many times. The instant polling suggested that listeners loved it, which surprised me a little. People are inclined to be patient with Obama and know he is not to blame for the mess, but I wonder how much longer they will love this kind of speech. This time next year, an address so heavy on inspiration and so light on policy surely is not going to work."
Of course, Obama has only been on the job for a month now, and we must give more time (if we even have that luxury with the mess we’ve been handed); but there was a creeping unease watching Obama’s speech last night that the days of this kind of rhetoric from Obama – heavy on sonorous abstractions and light on details and logic – are numbered.