Obama is Boring. But Why?

Peggy Noonan:

Mr. Obama has grown boring. And it's not Solid Boring, which is fine in a president and may be good. It's sort of Faux Eloquent Boring, especially on health care. The president likely doesn't know this, and his people won't have told him because they don't know it either, but Mr. Obama always has the same sound, approach, logic, tone, modulation. He always has the same stance. There's no humor or humility in it. News is surprise, and he never makes news.

I don't disagree with her, that Obama is b-o-r-i-n-g. It's the why I might think differently about. She explains herself of course, and you can read away her diagnosis, but I can't help but think that the answer is just that we get bored very easily. We're a people "amusing ourselves to death" Postman said, exposing the dark side of the conjoining of picture and prose in our culture. It's not that we're unintelligent, it's that we're hyperactive. Images require serious engagement, but very little serious interaction. And so we get bored quite quickly and become increasingly irascible.

What is fascinating about all of this is that Obama ran on, and was elected based on, this very premise. New is good. It is the best. And boy was he new. But not anymore. He is so old (much less than a year, if you're counting). They say that Obama has spoken some half a million words in public since entering office. Of course they would think more Obama the better. But what they've missed is that too much of anything for contemporaneous Americans just won't do.

In my perfect world, politicians would be voted for based solely on their character and beliefs; that is, their substance. And this goes even for men and women I wouldn't vote for. By engaging with truth, ideas, it seems to me that the right kind of change would happen. As it stands, who knows what we have. Do any of our politicians actually believe anything resolutely?

I have heard that Obama's approval ratings have gone up since he sequestered himself at the Vineyard. If he's smart, he'll hide until Americans forget about him. In a year or so, his reappearance will be refreshingly new.