During my time at Durham, I was quite spoilt by the Union Society, where one could both hear – and participate in – excellent debate. Not the plodding U.S. variety, mind you, but the crisp, quick, incisive sort for which the British are justly famous.
So I was amused that the Brits are catching on to the fact that Hope ‘n Change is a windy, robotic bore. From Iain Martin’s UK Telegraph blogpost entitled, ‘Barack Obama Really Does Go On a Bit’:
His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though I welcomed, moderately, his victory last year as offering the possibility of a fresh start and a boost to confidence.
Yet, we are told that he is a great orator and in one way he certainly is. He does have a preternatural calm in the spotlight and a mastery of the cadences we associate with the notable speakers in US history – such as JFK and MLK. But beyond that, am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?
His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled – his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.
Today, we were treated to another set-piece Obama speech, and my didn’t he go on a bit? The crowd in Prague was huge, and initially wildly enthusiastic, but what he served up was not any more impressive than his damp squib in Berlin last year. Is there a computer which churns this stuff out for him?
Yes, Iain, there probably is a computer that churns it out for him. And your closing comment (‘But I’ll wager that within a year or so he’ll be marked down as a wind-bag’) is right on the money in every particular but one.
We don’t have to wait a year to know he’s a wind-bag.
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