A Rare Event

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Tonight at 7 (Central) we will witness something that has been a rare event in this presidency — an address to the nation from the Oval Office.

People can — and do — call Barack Obama many things, but one thing no one could call him is camera shy. He seldom hesitates to say what is on his mind (which is the very definition of loose cannon, is it not? But I digress ...) yet, in fact, this will be only the third time in nearly seven full years as president that he has spoken to the American people from the Oval Office.

It took an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to prompt the first one. The second was a victory lap after the short–lived departure of troops from Iraq — and now it is (presumably) to clarify his position on ISIS, a fully functioning and extremely threatening terrorist group that Obama has famously dismissed as "the jayvee team" and, more recently, as being "contained."

Both assessments have been demonstrably false.

Presidential addresses from the Oval Office were commonplace for every president I can remember prior to Obama — and I'm not speaking of the weekly five–minute radio addresses that are usually delivered from the Oval Office. An Oval Office speech was usually (but not always) a good indication that the subject was an important one and every American needed to hear what the president had to say about it. That wasn't always true, of course. Presidents from both parties misused the bully pulpit, and because the forum has been abused in the past, I can appreciate the notion that an Oval Office address should be reserved for truly significant moments and issues.

I really don't know if that is how Obama feels about it, but, whether it is or is not, the fact remains that, under Obama, the pendulum has swung much too far in the other direction. The American people have been left in the dark on too many important issues for too long. They are entitled to better than that from their leaders.

Obama's speech, of course, comes days after the horrific attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14. In the hours after that attack, Obama hemmed and hawed when asked whether it was terrorism even though his own FBI, which has followed the president's lead on terrorism in the past and hesitated to label such acts, was calling it terrorism within hours.

Breitbart.com says, "This is the first sign that the Obama White House is preparing to address the threat of terrorism seriously after appearing reluctant to define the attack in California as terrorism."

That's pretty generous. And, you must admit, it is remarkably fair, a virtual acceptance that White House spokesman Josh Earnest was correct when he said that, in addition to speaking about the shooting itself, "[t]he president will also discuss the broader threat of terrorism, including the nature of the threat, how it has evolved and how we will defeat it."

I already know about the nature of the threat — and, whether they will admit it or not, I think most Americans do, too — and how it has evolved. I need no presidential lectures on those.

Personally, I'm still waiting to hear the president call this what it is — Islamic terrorism. These acts are being carried out by Islamic extremists who have interpreted the Qur'an as permission from God to kill all who disagree with them. The president has yet to acknowledge this. He and Hillary Clinton insist on reminding us that Islam is a peaceful religion, and the United States is not at war with Islam.

That's a straw man.

No one (to my knowledge) has suggested that this is a religious war. It is a war against extremists who are hell–bent on killing others. They clearly don't care about the religious beliefs of their victims. Other Muslims have been killed in their attacks as well as Christians and Jews.

The fact that these extremists, these murderers all claim to be Muslims is an identifying trait. Some people will say that is profiling, and I suppose it is, but it is also a fact that cannot be ignored. It may be a regrettable fact of modern life that we must take a closer look at Muslims who try to enter this country. That doesn't necessarily mean that Muslims who live here are being or will be denied their right to freedom of religion.

Well, I guess I can't make a blanket assertion like that. Most assuredly, there will always be bigots for whom unpleasant but necessary restrictions on certain groups are nice little byproducts.

But that is one of the things about which we need to have a national — and rational — conversation. We may also need to talk about how and whether to monitor and have legal provisions for shutting down mosques or any similar facility where violence is encouraged.

I know. This kind of thing smacks of the Nuremburg Laws, doesn't it? But the key difference, it seems to me, is that the Jews of Germany and Europe were not hijacking airplanes, attacking diners in restaurants or shooting up Christmas parties.

To deal with a modern threat it is necessary for us to label the enemy.

Identifying the enemy is the first step in defeating it. Once Obama has done that, I will listen to what he has to say about defeating it.

Until then, I have no tolerance for useless drivel about closing gun show loopholes or issuing executive orders to make it even more difficult for Americans to arm themselves.

If someone is determined to kill — and the willingness, even eagerness, of these animals to kill themselves and leave orphaned children, even infants, behind in the process is pretty good evidence of just how determined they are — whatever is available will do. These terrorists do not need guns to kill. They share information about making bombs, and they are constantly experimenting with new ways to conceal explosives. They have used knives in the past when no other means for killing were available. No doubt they would resort to throwing rocks if that was all they had.

No, they don't need guns to kill, but they won't let a minor annoyance like a gun control law keep them from getting guns if they need them.

Instead of talking about closing gun show loopholes, we should be talking about closing the other loopholes that made the San Bernardino shootings possible. There is an enormous loophole along this country's borders. If Obama doesn't think there are terrorist "sleeper cells" all across this country whose members have practically waltzed across the border, he is truly living in a fantasy world.

Everyone wants to be fair on immigration. No one wants to deny the hope of citizenship to those who truly wish to come to America and co–exist with all kinds of people. But it only makes sense to have a process in place that safeguards the people who are already here from immigrants who, knowingly or unknowingly, threaten their safety.

In the Ellis Island days, that usually meant temporarily quarantining people who might have been exposed to a deadly disease. Today quarantining immigrants would be done with the intention of giving authorities enough time to do background checks.

And I'm not talking about the cursory background checks that have been conducted — if time and resources permitted them to be conducted at all — up to this point.

The time has long since past when we could keep terrorist cells out of this country or quarantine enough of the suspicious immigrants long enough for background checks to weed out the most dangerous ones.

For tonight's Oval Office address, as rare as they have been in Obama's tenure, to have any historical meaning, it must spark a serious discussion about the most effective way to keep the American people safe.

That doesn't mean belittling those who have dedicated their lives to being first responders when crisis strikes.

That doesn't mean letting political correctness overrule common sense.

It means being a leader. Under this president, who almost always leads from behind, being a true leader has been even more rare than Oval Office addresses.

I Beg Your Pardon?

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"As we are a nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family. Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."

Gerald Ford
Sept. 8, 1974

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Many presidents have been known as "His Accidency." It is a label that is generally reserved for those who were elected vice president and then became president after the guy who was at the top of the ticket when the people voted on the matter died. There have been eight presidents who died in office.

Sometimes the voters have been pleased with the accidental president's performance — well, pleased enough to give him a full term on his own. Sometimes they haven't been pleased, and they voted him out. Sometimes the accidental president sees the writing on the wall and decides not to seek a full term.

Gerald Ford was a unique case in American history. He must be the most accidental president of all because he only became vice president when he was appointed to replace the duly elected vice president in the first use of the 25th Amendment to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency. Then, when Richard Nixon resigned, he became president.

Maybe that unique role in American history was liberating for Ford. Maybe he felt he could do things differently than the three dozen men who had occupied the presidency before him precisely because he had not sought the presidency or the vice presidency.

"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots," he said on the day he took office. A few minutes later, he pledged, "If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises."

The people believed him, even people who loathed his predecessor. They were willing to give him a chance. He came across as pleasant and sincere. It was a refreshing change. But it didn't last, largely because of what happened 40 years ago today.

It started out as a rather routine late–summer Sunday. Pro football would start its season a week later; college football had kicked things off with a bare–bones schedule the day before. For sports enthusiasts, the only thing of note besides baseball's pennant races was daredevil Evel Knievel's scheduled attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in the Skycycle X–2, a steam–powered rocket. He failed in the attempt, suffering some broken bones but nothing major.

But Knievel, who had been the recipient of considerable hype before the attempt, was knocked completely off the front pages. Ford, who had barely been in office a month, announced that he was pardoning his predecessor. The sense of betrayal showed in Ford's approval rating. A week after taking office, Ford's approval rating was 71% — nearly three times Nixon's approval rating when he resigned the week before.

But Ford's approval rating tumbled to 50% after the pardon, and many people — myself included — believe he never recovered politically. There were a few fluctuations, but, for the most part, his approval rating remained in the 40s for the rest of his presidency.

With the pardon, much of the good will that had accompanied Ford into office evaporated.

In the Wall Street Journal, Ken Gormley and David Shribman agree that the nation was "stunned" at the time. That would be impossible to dispute. "Now," they contend, "there's almost universal agreement that Ford was right." Personally, I have mixed feelings on that. Maybe I always will. I have come to believe that there was at least some justification for the pardon. Maybe it did allow the nation to heal. But even Ford must have known that the healing process would be long. The American people had been deceived — a lot — by their presidents for 10 years. They weren't going to be over it in a day or a week or a month or a year — or even two years when Ford would have to face the voters.

I don't know if Ford's pardon of Nixon hastened the nation's healing process, as Ford hoped, but it did resolve a dilemma for his Justice Department.

Memos show officials at Justice were wrestling with Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution, which said that a person removed from office by impeachment and conviction "shall nevertheless be liable to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to the law."

The Constitution, however, said nothing about a president who resigned from office. Ford's pardon effectively ended that discussion.

Attempting to Address a 'Crisis of Confidence'

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"I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.

"The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence."

Jimmy Carter
July 15, 1979

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Sometimes it is difficult to ignore Mark Twain's still–relevant observation that history doesn't repeat itself — but it does rhyme.

Recently, Josh Lederman of the Associated Press compared Barack Obama's presidency to Jimmy Carter's when he delivered his famous "malaise" speech 35 years ago tomorrow.

As I observed five years ago, Carter never used the word malaise when he addressed the nation from the Oval Office. He spoke of a "crisis of confidence."

The Republicans used the word malaise, and it stuck. When I heard people speak of malaise, it sounded like they were describing the Carter administration, not the American people. That was an interesting spin, given that many people complained that Carter was blaming them for what was wrong.

People sneered at Carter as if he were spinning his wheels in a muddy ditch. I really got the impression that summer that the voters were concluding that they had to make a change in the White House in 1980. The guy who was in there didn't seem to get it.

And, with Obama, it is hard not to see parallels when, as Lederman writes, "both parties have essentially written off prospects for any major legislation for the remainder of Obama's presidency. Obama's attempts to circumvent Congress to get things done have drawn rebukes from the Supreme Court and a threatened lawsuit from the House, casting a bright light on the state of Washington dysfunction."

As Yogi Berra said, "It's like deja vu all over again."

This is what I think happened in 1979: Democrats couldn't believe the country would turn things over to the Republicans in the next election — less than six years after Nixon's resignation. Besides, the Republican front–runner, Ronald Reagan, would be nearly 70 by the time of the next election. Democrats either assumed — or persuaded themselves — that they would survive the 1980 elections. Many, including Carter, did not.

I've been observing American politics most of my life, and I don't fully understand the ebbs and flows of presidential popularity. It is truly a bewildering (yet fascinating) dynamic, this relationship the American people have with their presidents.

Initially, Carter's speech was a hit with the public. His message of austerity in energy consumption appeared to resonate at first, but public approval came crashing down within a few days after pundits sliced and diced it. Clearly, there was a backlash — but was it genuine or had it been manufactured?

Carter's speech, of course, was given long before the internet, even before cable was present in most American homes. There were no all–news networks and relatively few radio stations that carried straight news, let alone programs hosted by left– or right–wing ideologues. Many of the things that shape and direct the course of public opinion today did not exist in 1979.

I didn't pick up on it at the time, but many people who watched the speech seemed to feel Carter was blaming them for the energy crisis instead of trying to resolve the problem. I guess it didn't help when Carter said things like "In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close–knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self–indulgence and consumption."

That does seem a bit preachy, huh? I mean, he might as well have said, "You're greedy and self–centered." In many ways, I guess that was true, in some ways I guess it still is, but it's a truth that requires delicacy in the telling.

When I was growing up, I heard people who were there tell of the spirit of generosity and sacrifice that permeated Americans in the 1930s and 1940s. Maybe that's true, or maybe it was a case of folks remembering things the way they wanted to remember them and not the way they were; but if even a fraction of it was true, the Americans of that time were more generous than the Americans of the '70s and '80s — or, for that matter, the Americans of the 21st century.

Carter told people a harsh truth that many probably did not want to hear — that a way of life was at the heart of the problem — and Carter wasn't as diplomatic as he fancied himself to be. "We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose," Carter said.

It wasn't really surprising that, when Carter wrote his presidential memoirs a few years later, he focused most of his attention on his foreign policy record in office. Other than the 14 months–plus that he spent trying to get the hostages back from Iran, his foreign policy performance included triumphs like the Camp David Accords whereas his domestic influence was summed up in the public mind by the "malaise speech."

In the long run, it might not have been any better if people had remembered it as the "crisis of confidence." Neither that nor "malaise" is a rousing endorsement of a president's stewardship.

Reagan's Finest Hour

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I was never even close to being an admirer of Ronald Reagan when he was president.

But I give him credit for what he did on this day 25 years ago when the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated shortly after takeoff, and all seven members of the crew were killed.

Others have been doing the same today.

Carl Cannon of Politics Daily writes that Reagan's speech to the nation late that afternoon was "perhaps the most inspiring of his presidency."

I always felt that way about it. And I think the reason why it was the most inspiring was because it was stripped of ideology.

Reagan's true believers would probably cite other speeches that he gave as more inspiring because those speeches spoke to their core beliefs about taxes and defense and co–existing with the Soviet Union. And I'm sure that is the kind of speech Reagan would have delivered if he had proceeded with his original plans to give his State of the Union address that night.

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Ultimately, because of what had happened, he postponed his address for a week and gave a hastily written speech from the Oval Office that afternoon, a speech that spoke of the future and pioneers and courage — things with which everyone could agree.

At the time, it was my understanding that Reagan had planned to mention, at some point in his State of the Union address, that the first teacher in space was preparing to conduct a lesson from space that America's schoolchildren were scheduled to watch later that week.

There was even talk that the administration had been putting pressure on NASA to proceed with the launch. It had already been postponed several times because of bad weather and other factors, and the word was that the administration was eager to capitalize on the space program and the fact that a teacher was on board the shuttle in the State of the Union address.

Consequently, the story went, the administration had been leaning on NASA to light that candle.

I don't know if that played any kind of role in what happened or not. And I don't know if the State of the Union speech that Reagan gave a week later differed substantially from the one he had planned to give. Matter of fact, I don't recall anything about the State of the Union speech he eventually gave.

The things that I do know are these:

• On the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, the temperature at the launch site was around freezing. It was right at the minimum temperature that was acceptable prior to launch, and engineers were concerned about the affect of the temperature on the solid rocket boosters (SRBs). The SRBs provided more than four–fifths of the thrust that a launch required.
  
  As it turned out, their concerns were well founded. An O–ring seal in the right SRB failed. To observers, it looked like the shuttle exploded. But those who knew more about the science of space travel could tell you that what everyone saw was a rather rapid sequence of events that occurred and caused the "launch vehicle" to break up.
  
  Technically, the statement by the launch officer that there had been no explosion was correct. But that knowledge was far from consoling to those watching in person or on TV. If anything, the knowledge that some or all of the crew members may have been alive as the shuttle plunged to the ocean in an uncontrolled dive for more than two minutes was even more terrifying. What must they have endured in that time?


• Six months after the Challenger disaster, a commission that was charged with the responsibility of investigating the event and determining the time and cause of the crew members' deaths reported that it could not precisely establish either.
  
  The shuttle had been designed to withstand atmospheric re–entry, and it had withstood the disintegration of the launch vehicle. It was not likely, the commission reported, that the breakup had caused their deaths — or even serious injury.
  
  But the shuttle had been cut loose from the vehicle that was supposed to propel it into space, leaving it without power, and so it tumbled back to earth. The shuttle had no escape system so the crew was trapped.
  
  It took nearly three minutes for the shuttle to crash into the ocean, at which point all seven crew members almost surely died, if they had not died already due to a lack of oxygen in a depressurized cabin.
  
  Whether any or all of the crew members remained conscious until the shuttle slammed into the sea will never be known. They found evidence that suggested that some of them may have been conscious, at least for awhile, but the actual causes of their deaths could not be determined.

It was with as–yet unresolved issues like these hanging over their heads that shocked and grief–stricken Americans turned to their president for words of comfort.

And then another thing that I know to be true happened. Reagan spoke for five minutes and soothed everyone, regardless of their politics.

It had been a traumatic day for me, just as it had been for everyone else.

Like September 11, it began as an ordinary Tuesday. In those days, I was working nights on the copy desk of a metropolitan newspaper, and my days off happened to be Monday and Tuesday so I was right smack dab in the middle of my "weekend."

It was my habit in those days to do a load of laundry on Tuesday so I would have plenty of clothes ready for the start of my work week on Wednesday night, and that's what I was doing that Tuesday morning.

I had just retrieved a load from the laundry room in my apartment complex, and I was folding clothes in my living room. My habit was to have on the TV or my stereo when I was doing things like that and, for whatever reason, I had chosen to have on my TV that morning.

I had CNN on, mostly as background, and they announced that they would be switching to the shuttle liftoff momentarily.

Oh, good, I remember thinking. Some actual news to watch.

I remember standing there, my jaw hanging open, as I watched those plumes of smoke twisting crazily in the Florida sky — while a little dot that later turned out to be the space shuttle drifted silently down to its watery grave.

Space travel had changed a lot since I was a child. When I was small in the 1960s, a space mission received extensive, virtually uninterrupted coverage from all three major networks, even if it really didn't amount to much. Space travel was new and mysterious, and no one knew what dangers lurked out there, even those who studied space and knew a lot more about it than most Americans.

There was a reverence for space travel among people — almost as if the very act of leaving our planet and venturing into space amounted to an unauthorized intrusion into heaven that might rouse God's wrath if he caught us doing it.

Perhaps part of that came from the shared national experiences of a fatal fire in an Apollo capsule in 1967 and then an aborted moon mission in 1970. In those days, Americans knew there were dangers involved in space travel.

But, by 1986, that reverence was gone, replaced by a kind of cockiness. People seemed to take space travel for granted. It must have been very much like the attitude of people at the time the Titanic was launched — a sense that man's ingenuity had conquered nature.

Anyway, prior to Jan. 28, 1986, the major networks had stopped devoting air time to shuttle launches, but they were on hand when Challenger lifted off — not because of any perceived risk but because of the historic nature of the launch. A civilian teacher would be on board.

Most Americans who were living in 1986 probably thought of space travel as routine. And who could blame them? With each space mission in nearly 16 years, it seemed to get easier. The splashdowns that had been so familiar to the people of my generation had been totally eliminated by the implementation of the space shuttle, which could glide into an airstrip after re–entry just like a commercial airline landing at the local airport.

No carriers had to be deployed. No helicopters had to be used to retrieve the crew and the capsule. No muss, no fuss.

No big deal.

When the Challenger was lost on this day a quarter of a century ago, it was a wakeup call. And it wasn't a pleasant awakening.

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Reagan helped Americans over the shock in the hours just following the disaster.

Then he did it again three days later at the memorial service in Houston.

I remember talking about it with a co–worker who happened to be a strong Reagan supporter. He and I had argued over the 1984 presidential election on a number of occasions so he knew how I felt.

When I told him that I appreciated what Reagan had done, he understood that I was sincere about that.

My feelings about Reagan as a president hadn't changed. I still disagreed with most of his policies. But I think my feelings about him as a human being did change — sometimes in almost imperceptible ways.

Whatever the truth of all that may be, this much is certain. I will always give him full credit for what he did 25 years ago today.

Message: I Care

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"You cannot be president of the United States if you don't have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial and the Civil War and all that stuff. You can't be. And we are blessed. So don't feel sorry for — don't cry for me, Argentina. Message: I care."

George H.W. Bush
41st president

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Do you remember when the first President Bush was facing an unexpected challenge within his own party while the Democrats were uniting behind a charismatic Southern governor and a Texas billionaire was urging disgruntled Americans to sign petitions that would get his independent candidacy on the ballot in every state?

It was 1992, and Bush was speaking to some insurance employees in New Hampshire at the time. He had been criticized for seeming detached from the American people, and his advisers, who had been struggling to find a strategy to counter that perception, inserted a cue card in his remarks that said, "Message: I care."

It was intended as a prompt for Bush to ad lib something, tell a story, connect with people and assure them that, yes, he really did care about them and their problems.

But he read the cue card word for word, which only reinforced the public's perception of a detached, elitist president. He lived down to the public's expectation of him.

Now, it isn't my intention to suggest that Barack Obama is as clueless as Bush certainly seemed to be on that occasion. But I still got the feeling as I watched Obama's speech last night that this was his "Message: I care" moment.

Because it seems to me that the lesson of the original "Message: I care" moment — and all the subsequent "Message: I care" moments — is that there are times when a president absolutely must give the public what it needs — even if it isn't what he wants to do. And, yet, he proceeds to give them the opposite of what they need — perhaps because he knows no other way.

In 1992, the public needed a president who clearly cared, but all Bush's gaffe did was confirm for the voters that he really was as out of touch as he appeared to be. He reconfirmed that impression later that year when, during one of his debates with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, the camera caught him looking at his watch while Clinton was answering a question.

And it was over for the elder Bush. Game, set, match.

In many ways, Obama's speech last night was a "Message: I care" moment.

It's been nearly two months since oil started gushing into the Gulf. Over and over, in the last several days, I have heard people speak in anticipation of Obama's speech. We know what happened, and we know who is to blame, people said. We don't need to be told what happened. We see it every night on our TVs. Tell us what the plan is to stop the flow of oil and clean up the oil that's out there.

But Obama insisted on recapping what had happened, anyway.

To his credit, he did spend some time talking about the plan of action. But, as Andrew Malcolm observed in the Los Angeles Times, "that early portion of the address was robotic, lacked real energy, enthusiasm. And worst of all specifics. He was virtually detail–less."

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"Obama was like a Harvard–trained nurse talking vacation to a new patient bleeding all over the ER floor. Hello, could we please stop the blood flow here before we discuss the long–term recovery?"

Andrew Malcolm
Los Angeles Times

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How could that be? The news was full of reports yesterday about how much more oil was being released into the Gulf waters every day than anyone had believed.

It seems clear that BP was, indeed, guilty of reckless behavior. But, as the Boston Herald wrote, there was "convincing evidence" of the absence of "an early coordinated response to protect the coastline." Consequently, "while the president tried to convince a skeptical nation that he was indeed in charge now, this was too little, too late."

OK, a convincing argument can be made that the Herald has never really been in Obama's corner. It was, after all, one of the newspapers that endorsed John McCain in 2008. But the thing about the "Message: I care" moment is that a president isn't just criticized by his foes but also, however offhandedly, by his friends.

And one of Obama's friends, the New York Times, wrote, "We know that the country is eager for reassurance. We're not sure the American people got it from a speech that was short on specifics and devoid of self–criticism."

Maureen Dowd, who writes for the Times, just can't seem to break that tendency to fawn over Obama even when she scolds him.

But scold him she did.

"Of the many exciting things about Barack Obama's election, one was the anticipation of a bracing dose of normality in the White House," she writes. "So it's unnerving now to have yet another president elevating personal quirks into a management style. How can a man who was a dazzling enough politician to become the first black president at age 47 suddenly become so obdurately self–destructive about politics?"

Personally, I would argue that it wasn't as "sudden" as Dowd seems to think. That conclusion seems particularly baffling to me when I read what Dowd observes next — how his "emotional detachment" has "obscured his vision."

Frankly, it astonishes me when I hear people speaking of Obama's detachment as if it is a new thing. I've seen it in his response to the burgeoning epidemic of unemployment that has wrecked millions of lives. The fact that he seems detached when dealing with another catastrophe that threatens millions all along the Gulf coast is not a surprise to me.

What does surprise me is that a bright, articulate, Harvard–educated president doesn't get that there are times when a president must prioritize. We can hold BP accountable after we plug the hole and start cleaning up the mess in the Gulf. We can devote money and manpower to developing better energy sources once this crisis is over.

Until then, this disaster in the Gulf is plenty big enough to keep us busy.

Obama was "not particularly inspiring," said the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, which endorsed Obama in 2008 but can't quite seem to shake that decision, even though it feels compelled to proclaim that Obama "offered more than rhetoric."

Indeed? Well, the St. Petersburg Times also seemed to agree with Malcolm that Obama was short on specifics.

"[A]n anxious American public wanted to know, HOW are you going to accomplish all this?" Malcolm wrote.

But Obama spent half of his address — his first from the Oval Office — lecturing his listeners about the need to explore alternative energy sources.

Is Obama right that this is something America needs to discuss? Yes. Is it something that America has needed to do for a long, long time? Yes. Is it appropriate to be talking about it now? No.