'The Thrill Is Gone'

From David Zurawik at the Baltimore Sun:
After watching President Barack Obama's first primetime news conference, I am beginning to think the thrill is gone -- his TV magic and mojo have deserted him. Maybe, folks like me were just a little too quick in elevating him to the pantheon of great radio and TV communicators like Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan as masters of the media of their times. . . .
From the very start of the president's opening statement, it was clear that he was not on his A-game. As opposed to the easy-going, relaxed rhythm of his speeches during the campaign, as well as the news conferences he held as president-elect, he was rushing his words -- talking at a speed that seemed about one-third faster than he normally speaks.
It was almost as if he had too much adrenaline -- or his mouth could not keep up with his mind. Whatever the reason, he stumbled over a few words, and lost the power of that measured, colloquial rhythm he used during the campaign and just after the election to make it sound as if he was talking directly and personally to each and every viewer out in TV Land.
One of the results of his rhetorical shortcomings is that he failed to humanize the people of Elkhart, Ind., whom he had visited earlier in the day. He wanted to hold the suffering of those who had lost their jobs in the Heartland up against what he sees as the indifference of those in Congress who by voting against the plan are, in Obama's estimation, unwilling to do anything to help.
But even though he opened and closed the session with talk of the victims of the economic meltdown who are living in Elkhart, he never managed to make viewers feel their pain. And so, his argument was tremendously weakened.
In general, it is not a good thing on TV to come across as uptight and defensive. And while Obama will never be confused with Richard Nixon in this regard, he did worse on both counts than I have ever seen him do on the tube.
In the end, maybe the worst result of him not being on the top of his rhetorical game is that he was never able to redeem his malaise-drenched message of what a crisis he inherited with any vision of better days ahead -- no matter how far down the road they might be.
Near the end of the session, he called himself an "eternal optimist" and expressed his faith that we will "solve these problems." But he didn't have his TV game together enough to make us believe.