A President Who Can Speak
I know it is “just words”. I know it isn’t “getting things done”. But Obama can give a great speech. Between this and his 90 minutes with the trib, I am liking him more and more. The ability to open yourself up to scrutiny and really try to let people understand some of the nuances of your thinking, rather than just shutting down the questioning and giving the answers that he thinks people want to hear. In his speech today, he condemned what was said by his pastor, but gave enough background to be able to understand why he ever would have stood by him in the first place. And then used it as an example of where our country still has to go. I suppose I am a sucker for a good public speaker, but I’m impressed. Even more so because he is learning how to do this more and more as the campaign goes on. At first he did the old, just give enough info to let people know I didn’t do anything wrong. I think the openness thing is really starting to seep into the consciousness of his team. I only hope the rest of the country can recognize it for what it is, and not fall game to the fear based campaigns. (Although to be fair I haven’t seen a lot of that recently from the other candidates either.)
Update: Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way. Blogs from Chicagoist to the Daring Fireball are talking about this speech. Not much from the local bloggers yet though.