Obama’s Speech – The Need to Speak Outside the Box (And Desk)
Part of the Problem?
I have to say that I find almost any presidential speech made from the Oval Office desk immediately suspect.
I can remember Nixon looking shifty (even before we were sure he was), his face shining with sweat and the nervousness of sweat; Johnson managing to combine both elephant and basset hound in one sorrowful gaze; Reagan with the actorly aw-shucks confidence of the perfect-haired; Carter, lips moving less than a ventriloquist’s, irritated arrogance barely hidden by humble bangs. I can even summon up a few traces of Kennedy, elegance nearly obscuring message. (Johnson weirdly enough is one of the most compelling memories; there is something about a massive and slightly rumpled head that counters the irritatingly punctiliousness of the desk’s carefully staked-out surface.)
My dislike does not particularly target the Oval Office desk; I dislike desks generally. I am a floor sitter (or bed sitter) by nature. When I do sit at a desk, I tend to squat or sit cross-legged. (Thank God for “modesty panels.”)
Desks are automatically a little disempowering—the person is foreshortened; their breath doesn’t flow right; their gestures are crimped. (How many opera singers do you see singing from desks?)
A desk is particularly bad for Obama whose youthful appearance and natural neatness already give him an overly-studenty aspect.
What’s on the desks bugs me too. (Enough, I know….) I can understand wanting photos of one’s wonderful family as talismen for one’s self, but when I see the photos facing out to the audience, I feel, well, manipulated.
Given my feelings about desks, I was a bit put off by Obama’s speech at the start.
I was also put off by the end, the story of the fishermen’s prayer ritual. Obama may be a genuinely religious person (I think he is), and he may be right that a collective consciousness of suffering, a collective prayer, is worth some promotion (though a little of this goes an awfully long way.) But an extended discussion of prayer tends to make one feel as if there is no hope for human solutions.
Now for the middle of the speech. Yes, I know problems need to be studied, but arranging for a commission sounds like “sending something off to committee”—a way to keep change from happening rather than to make it happen.
So what part of the speech sat well with me, as it were (though not at a desk)? We simply have to change the way we consume and produce energy in this country, and the ways in which we regulate exploration and production. Obama has got it absolutely right here, and, hopefully, in the wake of all of the despoliation and waste, in the midst of the desk and prayers, people will sit up and listen.
Explore posts in the same categories: Obama, UncategorizedTags: analysis of presidential desk speeches, changes in energy policy, creating commissions, Energy policy, manicddaily, ManicDDaily pencil drawing of desk, Obama's June 15 2010 speech, Obama's speech re Gulf and Energy, prayer in political arena, prayer in speeches, problems of giving speeches from desks, Reagan Carter Johnson Nixon at desks
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ManicDDaily 
June 16, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I think the beginning and the end of the speech were for the people of the Gulf — and probably did connect with that community.
I was pretty underwhelmed by the speech until I realized the president didn’t give the speech to say what I wanted him to say. He gave the speech to say what he wanted to say. And when I thought about what he said, what he wanted us to know and to think about, I had a different reaction.
I fear we are besieged with punditry and the temptation is to critique rather than analyze. For my part, I’m trying to do better.
Thanks for the post, Karin. A good read, and thought provoking — as usual. I totally agree with you about the desk.
June 16, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Dear Fran, I really love Obama (as you probably know by now.) And I think you are right–he probably was trying to connect with people from the Gulf in the parts of the speech that seemed harder for me to understand. I watch very little television so what they are going through is kind of inconceivable to me; people have compared it with 9/11 and, as a New Yorker, I can’t imagine that at all. On the other hand, that may simply show my very limited imagination and lack of visual knowledge (due to not watching all the posted images.) I am sure Obama, having been there, is genuinely moved and upset. What a terrible thing. K.
June 17, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Concerning comparing the BP spill to 9/11:
If comparisons are odious, surely so much worse for equations, right? But metaphors are equations, and
our public life is unimaginable without them. Why must our leaders turn to metaphor? Our hope for the future depends upon our learning from the past. By nature our most urgent crises are sui generis. Metaphor, concocted equations of present and past, makes for palpable precedents, shared experiences which form the basis for consensus. Leaders who cannot effectively tap living history lose out to those who can.
Both the BP spill and 9/11 immediately felled human lives. The scales differ, but that does not make the lose of life this time more tolerable. Only the BP spill threatens species extinctions, only the BP spill directly damages a large region, only the BP spill potentially destroys basic ways of life for
millions well into the foreseeable future.
Perhaps one shouldn’t compare. But one can agree that we cannot suffer the risk of a repeat of either event. The country did take drastic steps to avoid another 9/11, no doubt some unwise. Difficult as that event was, building a concensus for a response was easy, because we externalized the enemy, perhaps
artificially. The oil continues to flow, the wound to gush, and somehow the president and the environmentalists who support him haven’t gained control of the interpretation of this horrible reality. I’m fine with calling this Obama’s 9/11.
I say let’s declare as our enemies corporate greed and unbridled corporate power and let’s have our media tell us we are united as Americans in opposition.
June 17, 2010 at 10:53 pm
The nature of the events just seems so different to me I can’t compare them. And, of course, one problem is that I don’t think Americans are united against corporate power and greed. At least, many are so suspicious when O. takes any step against corporate power. It’s kind of crazy.