Barack Obama: Great Orator, Lousy Television
❧ Why he should ditch the direct-to-camera format

September 11, 2013
By Reid Cherlin

When the president of the United States plans a military strike, the received wisdom says he is supposed to address the nation to tell us about it. We all have memories of gathering round the TV as presidents loved and hated (or in most cases, both) assured us that whatever long-expected military action was now underway, tidily, resolutely, and only because there was no other choice. But these ritual appearances usually fail to bring us closer to national consensus; they also tend to earn the White House poor reviews. In the case of President Obama, so often vaunted as a breakthrough speechmaker, it’s as if he whiffed on a homerun pitch.

Sure enough, the chilly reaction pieces to his Syria address are rolling in this morning. There are certainly some obvious reasons why the speech was probably doomed from the start—neither the public nor Congress has been at all keen on a strike, and the whole operation is now being held up as the putative Russia deal works itself out. But even so, it’s worth pointing out that for his many verbal talents, Obama has always been surprisingly bad at the direct-to-camera format...

Read on at The New Republic ➝