Obama still has work to do with the vision thing. Convincing voters that he has a credible, practical plan to turn the nation around is a process, not a speech.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think that President Obama is beginning to realize that a lot of his plans have backfired.
I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn't even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing.
Democracy is not about making speeches. It is about making committees work.
Though President Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to pass the DREAM Act, he never made it a priority and failed to bring Republicans and Democrats together to do it in his first term.
President Obama can talk about having no grand schemes and making no big gains, but the reality is he can't get anything of significance through Congress.
If Mr. Obama wants to get things done, he must recognize that in Washington only the president has the power to make the first big move.
In 2007, early in the improbable presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, the young first-term senator began a series of foreign-policy speeches that seemed too general to provide a guide to what he might do if elected.
Truth be known, President Obama has never been particularly driven by principle. Right after his election, I wrote a column in a few days warning people that even though I voted for Obama, he was not what people were describing him to be. I saw him in the Senate. I saw him in Chicago.
We are tired of Obama's empty speeches and his misguided rhetoric.
In the Reagan administration, a great speech was just the first step in a long process. In the Obama administration, it's the only step.