Perhaps it is my own fault for being too used to a president in Bush who asserted authority to a fault and almost never contemplated that an opposing view to his ideas existed (at least in public). For certain, Obama should be commended for the nuance he puts into his addresses. After all, we want enlightened leaders who are able to see both sides of the issue (hell, that's what I am all about). At the same time however, one can only hear "on the other hand" or "well, to be fair" so many times. At some point we need a leader who makes the call. This is not to say that Obama is not putting his foot down behind the scenes, but sometimes he needs to drop that hammer before the public.
Recent polls seem to illustrate this same phenomenon across the country. Despite having high popularity marks at around 60%, confidence in Obama's ability to solve the current situation rest around 10-15% lower than his approval numbers. What are these 15% or so of Americans saying then? Well, either that the crisis is simply too tough for anyone to handle, or that this particular President, a nice guy trying his best, simply doesn't have what it takes to tackle the problems.
For me, Obama feels like a chief advisor dishing out insightful opinions and much needed words of wisdom. When he speaks on the issues, he demonstrates that he is probably the smartest guy in the room. Yet, I continue to watch his press conferences expecting some idealistic strong-man to walk up behind him saying "we'll take that under advisement", push the President aside, and then tell us exactly what we are going to be doing to address the problems.
I like to think that nuance is good, and that the American people will have the patience and attention spans to think a little deeper than the black and white we've spent 8 years dealing with. I am a bit doubtful about that though, because even for someone who follows politics as closely as I do, this is going to take some getting used to.
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