Harsh verdict
Professor Paul Rahe wrote this at Powerline in the course of discussing the recent Noonan piece on the panic setting in at the heights of the Democratic Establishment:
In 2008, the Democrats…had on their hands an inexperienced, recently minted US Senator from Illinois who was — as Joe Biden put it in a candid remark that typifies his propensity for speaking his mind without first thinking about the consequences — “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Never mind, they thought, Obama’s long-standing connections with William Ayers, the unrepentant mastermind of a domestic terrorist bombing campaign in the 1970s. Never mind Obama’s close association with the racist demagogue Jeremiah Wright. Never mind his lack of executive experience, his unfamiliarity with the private sector, and his ignorance of the ways of Washington. With the help of the pliable press, he could be sold — and Americans would congratulate themselves on their lack of racial prejudice if they voted for him.
Now comes the reckoning. For Barack Obama seems to be a one-trick pony. He is very good at delivering a speech if he has a teleprompter at hand, and the first and even the second time that you hear him, you will be impressed. If you bother later to read and re-read the speech you will perceive its emptiness. But few will do that, and by the time that they do, it will be too late.
That is one problem. The other is that Obama’s one trick cannot often be played. As we have seen over the last few months, as he has tried to play this trick over and over and over again, the more we see of him, the less we are impressed. Franklin Delano Roosevelt never held his fireside chats more than three times a year. How many times has Obama demanded airtime from the networks in the last ten months? I shudder to think.
As of late September the count was this: In just 41 speeches so far this year, not including this week’s big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times -– 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 “me”s.) And that just includes 34 weekly addresses and his seven major speeches… This act has gotten worn out in record time.