Emperor has no suit: London Times - Obama Stumbles
Barack Obama is a gifted orator, but barely a month into his Administration there are worrying doubts about whether his governing style is as eloquent
Nobody who heard him addressing a joint session of the House and Senate on Tuesday could doubt that Barack Obama can speak. But increasingly the question being asked of the new President is: can he manage?
It is a political commonplace that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. But the sound of Mr Obama’s prose has begun to jangle. “Now is the time,” he said lulling his congressional audience, “to act boldly and wisely - to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.” The trouble is that this wasn’t the first time that Mr Obama told Americans that “it’s time to act”. Nobody doubts that now, in the teeth of the cruellest economic crisis in decades, it is time to act. But the world is still not clear what actions Mr Obama plans to take. What unnerves it even more is that when he has acted, his judgment has not always matched the sturdiness of his campaign rhetoric, let alone its slick, skilful execution. He has been ambushed in traps too often of his own making.
Yesterday Mr Obama was forced to introduce his third nominee for Commerce Secretary, the former Washington Governor Gary Locke, after his two previous candidates dropped out - the first, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, because of an investigation into possible corruption, and the second, Republican Senator Judd Gregg, from New Hampshire, over ideological differences. As for Tom Daschle, the President’s nominee for Health Secretary, he had to bow out of a job in the White House to spend more time with his unpaid taxes
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