ABC OK

Cristianne Amanpour put together a good panel today for ABC's This Week and had some good questions. The dialog was good enough that I had to force myself to pay attention to her bangs today - not bad BTW. Paul Krugman and Tom Freidman, and Friedman made more sense than he has for years - more sense than he has in any of the last 8 FU's. The subjects were the economy, politics, and the Middle East. Friedman pointed out that the Obama Presidency had utterly failed to construct a narrative and that they had proven more inept at getting their message out than any recent presidency.

Obama's recent Oval Office address on the so-called end of combat operations in Iraq was a case in point. It was only the second of his presiency and should therefore have said something momentous. He did not, and the talk was inevitably redolent of "Mission Accomplished."

Obama came to office with a reputation as a communicator. He has failed to live up to that reputation, and that failure is frustrating and surprising. We know he knows how to write and how to speak. Why can't he articulate a plan and sell it? It's tempting to blame the caution and folly of his political advisors, but we need to remember that the monkeys work for the guy in the monkey suit. (or was that something about Tzars and Cossacks?)

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