The Most Boring Man in the World?

Obama’s speeches all run together into the same mind-numbing oration.

by Rich Lowry

Barack Obama’s vibe used to be a cross between JFK and Beatlemania. Now it’s fading into “Oh, him again?”

There’s nothing wrong with a boring politician. But Obama isn’t becoming boring in a stolid, dependable Angela Merkel kind of way. He’s not boring like a mannerly George H. W. Bush or a thoughtful Bill Bradley. He’s boring like yesterday’s celebrity.

He’s the teen heartthrob who’s grown a little too old. He’s the star from The Real World Denver — three years ago. The cruel vicissitudes of the celebrity culture apply to everyone. If Paris Hilton can be overtaken by the even-more-pointlessly famous Kim Kardashian, no one is safe.

Much of what was new and different about Obama didn’t survive its first contact with reality. His core supporters on the left suffer from what Woodrow Wilson called, in a different context, the “tragedy of disappointment.” They expected a glorious new dispensation. Yet Gitmo remains open, more troops are going to Afghanistan, and the tides haven’t receded.

Swing voters had more modest hopes — responsible, nonideological governance. Nope.

The Obama team believes there is only one person who can redeem his political project — and that’s Barack Obama. He must be deployed early, often, unrelentingly. He’ll talk to your children in the classroom, show up during your Thanksgiving Day NFL game and explain — and explain some more — his policies.

The old preacher’s adage is, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.” Obama might add “repeat as necessary,” including on late-night TV shows...  Read the whole article.