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, Why? Why does […]
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, section of that […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
December 2, 2009 – 2:51 am
Despite pronouncing the word “Taliban” as if he were a calypso singer, President Obama sounded and looked strong and confident in his Afghanistan-themed address last night. The optics were right, as the president was joined by row upon row of sharply dressed officers-in-waiting. The pace of the speech was good – the president not getting […]
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 […]
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 […]
November 15, 2009 – 12:10 pm
We don’t generally do up-to-the-minute news here, but I thought it worth following up on two points I raised yesterday regarding President Obama’s trip to Asia. First, it appears that even with George Bush out of the way, international leaders are still having trouble reaching agreement on a climate change accord with teeth. Consensus is […]
November 14, 2009 – 12:30 pm
Ten months into his own term as US president, Barack Obama continues to conjure the ghost of George W. Bush to help define himself in international circles. Of course, it’s not really the ghost of George W. Bush. It’s the ghost of the caricature of George W. Bush. Kicking off his Asian trip with remarks […]
November 5, 2009 – 10:03 am
The latest in the General Motors saga appears to be a case of either embarrassingly bungled communications or wretched diplomacy by the Obama Administration. In brief: GM had announced plans to sell Opel, the German car manufacturer. The German government spent months brokering a deal with a Canadian-Russian venture to buy Opel and preserve jobs […]
November 4, 2009 – 12:23 pm
Time for President Obama to move the smiley face upside down after the only two governorships up for grabs yesterday – both currently held by Democrats – went over to the dark side. Chris Christie, proving that only Republicans named Christie can win in New Jersey, knocked off both incumbent governor Jon Corzine and an […]
October 27, 2009 – 7:58 am
Former vice president Dick Cheney continues to be the most effective opponent of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy. Last week, receiving the “Keeper of the Flame” award from the Center for Security Policy, he again laid out a case for why President Obama is misguided on Iran, relations with Russia, missile defense and our allies […]
