President Barack Obama’s Oval Office address on the Gulf Coast catastrophe is being greeted with a barrage of criticism from commentators and political analysts across the ideological spectrum — the most intense negative reaction to any major public appearance he has given as president.
If the goal was to change the widespread Washington storyline that Obama is not rising to the occasion for the BP debacle, it became clear within moments that the 18-minute speech was an emphatic failure — and not just among conservatives who predictably root for the president to fail.
“Junk Shot,” blared the headline at Huffington Post. Salon took a similar theme: “Just words: Oval Office speech fizzles.”
Generally sympathetic commentators Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews likewise honked with critical reviews on MSNBC. Voices on the right, not surprisingly, were even more critical.
The White House said before the speech the president’s goal was to speak more broadly to the American people and frame the oil spill in a larger context about the need for a new national energy policy. There was scant polling by Wednesday morning to measure his success.
But the withering reviews from the commenting class were so widespread that they created a new problem for a White House that already has a plateful. Common themes were that Obama did not project a sense of executive command and was too light on details about both the cleanup and the energy legislation he is pushing in the wake of the disaster.
“It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days,” said Olbermann on his show’s recap of the speech. - Politico Story
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