If there is anything worse for a leader than rhetorical impotence, I don’t know what it is. Even a sex scandal implies some sort of virility. But empty words? [Text here.]
Imagine you’re at the grocery store and you see that mom screeching at her child. The mother rages, the child continues his marauding ways. The other children yawn. Mom lost it a long time ago. Friends roll their eyes. No one takes her seriously because she’s in over her head.
President Obama is wearing the Mom Jeans in more ways than one.
This is not good. President Obama turns to talking because that has saved him in the past. And as far as pure presentation goes, the speech tonight was decent. The problem, though, is that there was no there there and the mindless hoards, if they are even paying attention at this point are rolling their eyes. Like the siblings in the store, they know mom doesn’t mean it.
Is President Obama Carter? Is he Nixon? Is he Bush II? No, he’s his own brand of incompetence (who is considered worse, by the way, than Bush).
He’s young. He’s inexperienced. He’s ideological. He loses interest when a situation is difficult. He’s comfortable with corrupt, strong-arm tactics. He’s well-versed in the language of victimhood but not the language of perseverance, overcoming, and victory.
Basically, he’s a liberal who has had his brain washed in ideas that work well on paper and the hermetic environment of a college classroom but fail utterly when tested in the real world.
Alan Colmes, who is twisting himself into knots to defend the indefensible, asks, “Who among us would do a better job in such a crisis?” Um, John McCain? You know, a guy who was battle tested and actually knows things like international protocol and basic economics.
But Alan is pretty alone, here. Most libs are not feeling all tingly any more; they’re getting the creepy crawlies.
Josh Trevino says, via Twitter,”Obama drove the debt sky-high, sold out Israel, betrayed Iranian democrats: but the online left is only mad at him over BP. Okay then.”
But that’s the superficiality of an Obama supporter. So, in the ironical world of politics, a disaster that mars the environment may well be President Obama’s undoing–it gives his fickle followers the cover they need to slink away from him. He was making them nervous about all his big government, internationally embarrassing, terrorist coddling, bailouts, union loving, ally hating actions, but they couldn’t say anything about that because, well, it sounded good, or at least Candidate Obama sounded good saying it, until they saw it in action. So, whew!, oil spill. Now, even the most lefty leftist can shun the President and still look like a hipster doing it.
President Obama earned this disrespect, but it’s still painful to watch. No one wants to see a tyrannical two year old. And no one wants to see President Mom Jeans flail around impotently while all hell breaks loose domestically and abroad.
Is America ready for an adult in the White House again? I don’t think so. Not quite yet. A couple more years of this nonsense, though, and maybe sensible, mature and competent will outshine those dazzling pearly whites and smooth words.
One can hope.
UPDATED:
Ann Althouse isn’t happy. I wonder if she’s still happy she voted for him.
Quoting Ann, Glenn Reynolds quips: MORE: “This is such embarrassing cliché rhetoric: Some say we can’t do it. I say we can’t not do it.“ I think I used that line with a girlfriend, once.
Little Miss Attila says:
“It’s as if the Brits and the U.S. Congress had held their hearings on the Titanic disaster while people were still drowning. Let’s save their lives, and then talk to the shipbuilders about their construction standards, shall we? Get people out of the icy-cold water, and afterward you can form all the damned commissions you want.”
Well, crisis, seize, opportunities, and all that.
UPDATED AGAIN:
The Anchoress has a roundup and sets Obama’s speech to music.
UPDATED AGAIN:

Ed Morrissey calls it a disaster. I call it the same old thing: lots of generalities, banal words, empty promises, lack of emotion, emotion in the wrong places and general all hype and no hoop.
But it is a disaster, more so NOW, because people are expecting leadership and action NOW. During the election process, people were looking for an excuse to vote Anybody But Bush and Obama gave them one. That is, he was a negative candidate–he wasn’t that guy. There are a few, were a few, people who proactively loved Obama, but those numbers are waning. He won a divided Democrat primary and I suspect that he has those hard kernel supporters still but few else.
I don’t think President Obama has changed either stylistically or substance-wise. People are just now seeing him. Texas Governor Rick Perry called him the most superficial president in the history of the United States. He’s right.
Here’s how Ed summarizes:
“During the 2008 campaign, we repeatedly criticized Obama’s lack of executive experience, but perhaps even Obama’s critics might be surprised to see how badly Obama has performed in this crisis. He has nothing left to offer; Obama is running on empty. In the face of a crisis that has unfolded for almost two full months, Obama chose to talk about wind turbines. A nation waited to see if a leader would emerge from the White House, and instead it got an absent-minded professor desperate to change the subject.
Even Obama’s supporters have begun to see what his critics have long known: Obama is an empty suit. His sorry performance last night showed just how little he understands his job, the situation, and the expectations of the American people.”
UPDATED AGAIN:
More thoughts here.