Maureen Dowd writes a lot of short sentences.
She wants to show strength.
And so she is using few words, but powerfully so.
Mainly, she is just angry that the President wasn't angry with anger because of a botched terrorist attack. This is because Presidents should not think, they should simply yell crazy shit so that us layfolk can comfortable about the fact that the President is leading.
No Drama Obama is reticent about displays of emotion. The Spock in him needs to exert mental and emotional control. That is why he stubbornly insists on staying aloof and setting his own deliberate pace for responding — whether it’s in a debate or after a debacle. But it’s not O.K. to be cool about national security when Americans are scared.
Look. I live an hour from Detroit. I spend time in Detroit. People around here are not particularly scared. In fact, they're more annoyed at the new ridiculous TSA guidelines than they are afraid that Barack Obama is going to let planes blow up out of a morbid and detached curiosity about the physics of concussive force in midair.
I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed get from our President. There were screwups. Obama took an eminently reasonable amount of time to figure out what happened, and then talked to the nation about it. He didn't attempt to turn a man wearing an explosive diaper into one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Famine, Death and Pampers, apparently), he simply approached it like a rational human being.
It's sickening how We the People are viewed by the commentariat - as scared little babies who expect our leaders to be pulled straight from the movies, able to insipid, buzzword-laden speeches that don't communicate anything directly, but communicate to paid communicators that they're communicating. And that, most of all, is what's meaningful and effective for all of America. So get up there and start yelling, Obama. It's the only way you'll ever be good at anything.
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