For a little perspective, here is how acclaimed communication strategist Richard Greene rated President Obama as a communicator a few years ago:
Barack Obama, at his best, in some ways is an even better orator than FDR or JFK and more accomplished than ‘The Great Communicator’ Ronald Reagan, a trained actor and Bill Clinton, by far the greatest one-on-one communicator in politics, if not the history of mankind.
(Huffington Post, January 25, 2011)
I agree.
Yet, from the first year of his presidency, Obama has been trying in vain to explain why he gets so little credit for doing so much.
He did it again yesterday, during an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep. In fact, CNN reported yesterday on six times during his presidency when Obama “blamed the message, not the policy,” for this abiding disconnect.
- In October 2010, he said the American people were not crediting his policies for rescuing the economy from the brink of another Great Depression because he was “not advertising properly what was going on.”
- In July 2012, he said the biggest mistake of his first term was not realizing that doing a good job was not enough. Evidently, he had to feed the American people feel-good stories too.
- In September 2013, he said Congress failed to support his plan to launch airstrikes against Syria because it “wasn’t packaged properly for lawmakers.”
- In November 2013, he said the American people were angry that Obamacare was forcing them to change their health plans because he “failed to communicate the realities of the law.”
- In November 2014, he said Republicans took over both houses of Congress because he spent too much time “implementing policies instead of selling them.”
- In December 2015, he said the American people are anxious about his strategy to defeat ISIS because he has “failed to highlight the plan’s successes.”
In other words, his abiding regret has been his failure to communicate. Not for want of trying, mind you; after all, what I wrote in January 2010 about his ironic self-criticism in this respect has obtained throughout:
The very articulate Obama has spent more time speaking directly to the American people than any other president in the first year of his presidency. In fact, in “Obama’s First Year: By the Numbers,” CBS news documents that he gave 411 speeches, comments and remarks; 158 interviews; 42 news conferences; and 23 Town Hall meetings.
This begs the question: What the hell does Obama think he was talking about all year – if not about core values like good jobs and healthcare, and about fixing the economy and reforming health insurance coverage to match up with those values?
(“Obama: What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 26, 2010)
In other words, Obama has just been making excuses for the American people’s failure to comprehend.
In fact, from the first year of his presidency, Obama has had an enviable record of accomplishments, which I’ve hailed and delineated in such commentaries as “2014 Midterm Elections: Republicans and the Triumph of Irrational Exuberance,” November 5, 2014.
Hell, thanks to his policies, gas is now under $2 dollars; unemployment is 5 percent; the stock market has more than doubled; the economy has fully recovered; and, despite all the political and media fear mongering, ISIS has managed only one lone-wolf attack in San Bernardino, which, to be honest, could easily have been mistaken for just another shooting rampage in gun-crazy USA. I could go on, but you get the point.
Frankly, if any other president had this record, communicating it wouldn’t be an issue. The American people would be singing his praises.
Therefore, only willful ignorance, born of rabid partisanship or liberated racism, explains why so many refuse to acknowledge Obama’s accomplishments. And only willful ignorance in spades explains why so many think a race-baiting megalomaniac like Donald Trump would make a better president. Incidentally, the foreboding is not lost on me that “irrational exuberance” describes Trump’s presidential appeal perfectly.
Today, we look back with moral indignation at the racism Jackie Robinson faced integrating Major League Baseball. Years from now, people will look back the same way at the racism “post-racial” Obama faced integrating the U.S. presidency. How’s that for irony…?
In any event, I hereby urge Obama to stop making excuses for this ignorance. For even these ignoramuses will miss him when he’s gone.
Related commentaries:
Failure to communicate…
2014 Midterms…
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