The Obama White House seems to have two answers for every big communications challenge. The first, a presidential speech. The second, a domestic summit.
We can debate later why the President’s speeches have stopped persuading the public. Here I want to say a word about all these domestic summits. The word is, [...]
January 31, 2010 – 12:31 pm
So I watched the president’s appearance before the GOP House caucus.
It came, of course, two days after Mr. Obama delivered his State of the Union address. Drafting an SOU is generally a team effort. I have been on one of those teams (1988), penning the best received, per the pulse polling, [...]
January 20, 2010 – 11:59 am
During the holidays Clark called me and said, “Ed, you’re lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.” And I said, “What?!?” And he said, “Oh, nevermind, it’s just something I’ve been working on with a client. It probably won’t go anywhere.
“The real reason I’m calling is this….” He went on to say [...]
January 4, 2010 – 2:43 pm
If there’s one storyline about President Bush I’ve never had any patience for, it’s the idea that he was on an endless holiday during his time in office. Reporters loved to bandy about the number of days the president spent at his ranch in Crawford or at Camp David. The “vacations” fed the notion that [...]
December 18, 2009 – 12:05 pm
Health care reform has turned into a fratricidal war among Democrats. Liberals vs. moderates; Reid vs. Lieberman; Ben Nelson vs. the world. Meantime, poll numbers for the president, Congressional Democrats, and the reform effort are falling through the floor. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows more Americans would rather do nothing than pass the Reid [...]
December 11, 2009 – 11:01 am
President Obama’s Nobel speech is winning praise from all quarters, and rightfully so. The speech was magnificent, beautiful in places and driven by a message challenging international diplomats and intellectuals to unite their ideals with a recognition of the world as it is.
The president also, in the midst of controversy over why he received the [...]
December 10, 2009 – 10:29 am
The Wall Street Journal reports on a testy exchange between President Obama and Congressional Republicans at the White House yesterday.
“At one point, the president told Republican leaders to ‘stop trying to frighten the American people,’ displaying a chart showing diminishing job losses over the past four quarters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said after [...]
December 1, 2009 – 11:05 am
Tonight, President Obama addresses the nation about his plan for Afghanistan. Presidents are at their most presidential when talking to the country about foreign affairs, particularly war, and President Obama has an opportunity to shine tonight.
While Clark has elsewhere questioned the setting for the president’s remarks, I believe the US Military Academy at West Point [...]
November 26, 2009 – 1:43 am
In October 1863, with his country mired in civil war, President Lincoln directed Americans to set aside the last Thursday in November as a day to give thanks for their “bounties.”
Turkey was not mentioned, nor was one pardoned. Wal-Mart Black Friday sales, including Vizio HDTVs for as little as $349, still lay in America’s magnificent future, [...]
November 25, 2009 – 11:09 am
Politico’s designated Obama-speech watcher/reader Carol Lee is up today with another analysis of the president’s verbal tics. Turns out President Obama may have an inflated sense of his own place in history.
I know! I was floored, too.
Here’s Lee:
Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly [...]
November 22, 2009 – 12:26 pm
Politico’s Mike Allen offers a blurb from Vice President Biden’s speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner – the annual Democratic campaign gala – in Des Moines, Iowa. One part caught my eye.
“We will not measure our success on the growth of the GDP, though its growth is necessary. We will judge our success on whether [...]
October 30, 2009 – 10:07 am
Former president George W. Bush deployed his down-to-earth charm and humor to wow a crowd gathered for a speech in Fort Worth the other day. According to the Washington Post, “Bush did not appear to have an overarching theme, but strung anecdotes and jokes together and frequently mentioned his faith in God.”
No overarching theme? That’s [...]
October 22, 2009 – 11:48 am
I think it’s refreshing when someone in Washington who has some skin in the game — a politician, an Administration official — tells a basic truth plainly. The latest example is Larry Summers, President Obama’s top economic policy adviser, who addressed economic recovery, debt, and stimulus at yesterday’s Reuters Washington Summit.
Asked whether stimulus measures to [...]
October 19, 2009 – 11:20 am
In his weekly address Saturday, President Obama reminded Americans that last November we “went to the polls in historic numbers and demanded change.” We “sought a change in our politics: a politics that too often has … fostered division.”
Oddly enough, he said this mere seconds after claiming that America’s health insurance industry is “deceptive and [...]
October 9, 2009 – 12:52 pm
NEW YORK — Responding to this morning’s stunning announcement that U.S. President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced that Mr. Obama has also won the 2009 World Series. The remainder of baseball’s playoffs will be canceled.
“I think we all saw when the president threw out [...]
