Obama's big speech -- The word is out: The speech was a flop

Obama's "Gulf crisis" speech review in a nutshell: Obama wanted to appear "presidential" so he delivered [perhaps] the most important speech of his political career from behind the desk in the Oval Office. 17 months as president and this is his first speech from behind THE DESK. Instead of using two teleprompters, one on each side, tonight's prompter straddled the camera, giving Obama the appearance of speaking directly to the American people -- eye to eye. The speech was one of his shortest, 18 minutes. His sentences were short and sweet BUT without much detail and spoken without emotion This editor does not believe Obama helped his cause at all. While one might argue that his mechanics were improved, the contend missed the marked and will soon be forgotten. Nothing can be more telling than the words from the folks over at MSNBC. If he cannot please these Kool-Aid drinkers, he cannot please anyone. Here are some of their thoughts:

Keith Olbermann: "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days."

Chris Matthews (the oldest teenager in the nations) compared Obama to Carter.

Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said."

Matthews: "No direction."

Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough."

Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."

Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a "commander-in-chief."

Matthews: "I don't sense executive command."

Midknight Review believes he might get a bump in his approval numbers of 2 or 3 points as a result of this speech but, in the end, this speech may have hurt him more than helped. He wanted this night to be the beginning of a legislative push to pass Cap and Trade. The speech did not help.
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