This piece of journalmalism from the Associated Press about Obama’s speech to Congress last night was filled with comparisons to FDR.
At a harrowing national moment, Franklin D. Roosevelt commandeered the young airwaves for a “fireside chat” with the American people — a candid talk about big troubles and how to fix them. He was confident and strong, a father figure to a nation that was losing its way. […]
Many chief executives have spoken directly with the American people since FDR’s era, and an address to Congress is hardly an intimate radio talk. No president, however, has faced a context so similar. Never have the words felt so aimed at soothing Americans who are scared, broke, rousted from their homes, uncertain about the future of their lives and nation. […]
Naturally the AP asks the single most critical question about Obama. What might that be? Were his proposed solutions to our economic meltdown good ones? Are his policy initiatives wise decisions, and will they work? Uh, not exactly:
But do we believe him?
And the verdict, as described by Ted Anthoney, the best political reporter AP could find to dig out the truth about Obama? Well, the answer is a definite maybe, as ascertained from by lots of anecdotal remarks by whomever the Mr. Anthony and his fellow AP reporters editors randomly contacted to speak on chose to include in the article regarding this critically important issue:
“He exudes a kind of self-confidence that I don’t think we’ve had for a long time. He kind of carries you along with it,” said Terry Swihart of Wakarusa, Ind., who has been laid off twice in the past year — once from a job she held for 28 years. Her husband also lost his job.
Despite her approval, Swihart added this caveat: “I hope it’s not just rhetoric.” […]
“He seemed a little more upbeat, instead of just crisis, crisis, crisis,” said Melissa Must, who runs a coffee shop in downtown Cincinnati. […]
“He inherited a country with grave problems,” [Jaimne] Silahua said. “The change is going to take some time. He’ll start it, and probably the next president will finish it.” […]
. . . Obama’s plan is, for him, a bit more abstract: “His initiatives are good — they just probably won’t help me at this point.”
That is often the problem when grand national themes collide with the building blocks of people’s lives and bank accounts. Obama invoked the vaunted American optimism and said that yes, another American century was possible. But it can be a hard sell for folks who lie awake at 2 a.m. with the stomach-churning realization that the creditors will be calling at dawn.
Yes, it is a hard sell Mr. Ted Anthony, ace reporter for the Associated Press (or your editor) for all of us folks with acid reflux disease. But heh, at least Obama didn’t come across like our last President, at least according to “Jody Baugh, an unemployed Indiana welder”:
“He didn’t come across as a used-car salesman,” Baugh said.
Meanwhile, for those of you who would like to find out what everyone else thought about the speech, the Boston Globe actually has some poll data for you to look at. You know, polls. Where lots of people are randomly selected to express their opinion without having it interpreted for them by top notch political jounalmalists, Beltway pundits and non-white Republican Governors (Did you really wonder why Bobby Jindal was chosen to deliver the GOP’s response to the first African American President’s first speech to Congress?). So what did the poll data say, Steven? Well, this might surprise you, but its shows that people’s reactions to Obama and his speech last night were much less less ambiguous than the AP story (written by wunderkind Ted Anthony) suggests:
According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey of Americans who watched the address, 68 percent said their reaction to his address was extremely positive and another 24 percent somewhat positive.
Also, 85 percent said his speech made them feel more optimistic about the country’s path in the next few years.
Asked whether Obama’s policies would move the country in the right direction or now, 88 percent answered the right direction, up from 71 percent in a pre-speech poll, and 82 percent said they generally supported the economic plan he outlined.
And 82 percent said they believed Obama’s plan would save or create millions of jobs, 80 percent said they believed Obama’s plan would improve the economy, 75 percent said it would improve the healthcare system, and 68 percent said it would cut the federal deficit.
The poll as conducted tonight and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Gee that’s odd. I wonder why Ted Anthony, rising boy wonder at the AP, chose not to mention the overwhelming approval for Obama’s speech and his policies as expressed in polls like the one CNN conducted? Mr. Anthony gave me the impression that Obama hit a single last night with his speech to the American people (to use a baseball metaphor) rather than the home run the CNN poll indicates. Could it be that the Associated Press has an agenda? That perhaps, just perhaps, they might have a teeny, tiny bias against President Obama as shown in the choices they make in covering stories about him?
Well, I’ll leave it to you folks to answer those very un-serious questions from a very un-serious blogger such as myself.
