During his quest for the presidency, Barack Obama was nicknamed "No Drama Obama" for his ability to stay calm and collected through the rigors of what was a very rough and tumble campaign. Not only did he consistently present himself as composed in public, he also mandated that all of his teams inside their headquarters exhibit the same self-control.
Last week, Obama got drama.
With his economic stimulus package running into heavy Republican opposition, he let his frustration show during an impromptu speech to House Democrats at a retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia. Politico.com devoted three articles to the change of his tone. Jonathan Martin, Josh Gerstein, and the team of Glenn Thrush and Patrick O'Connor, all wrote about Obama's strident delivery. Gerstein described Obama as "indignant, as he swapped the Kumbaya talk of recent days for blunt criticism of the Republican stimulus proposals."
I decided to see for myself from a presentation point of view, and played the Politico.com's embedded clip (embedded here for you) three times:
•Once with the sound off
•Once with the sound on, but with the computer screen turned off
•Once with the full video and audio image
The silent viewing showed a different Obama than we've been seeing for the past year. He remained serious throughout, with his brow furrowed, and not one instance of that dazzling smile. His usually restrained gestures were accompanied by a heretofore unseen finger-wagging.
During the sound-only playback, I heard his voice express alternately, petulance, exasperation, frustration, scolding, and anger. At one point, he started a sentence, "You know..." and then hitched irritably. At another, he blurted sarcastically, "Come on!"
In the 5:55 clip, I tallied 18 variations of "not," a significant departure from the audacity of hope.
And during my third viewing, when Obama was talking about imperfection, he said, "Michelle reminds me every day how imperfect I am," but he delivered the self-deprecation seriously, losing its impact. He had used the same line - with a smile - to great effect during his second debate with John McCain. It made Obama look warm and yet confident, and stood in sharp contrast to McCain's petulant behavior during the same encounter.
So our oratorical president is human after all. Given the current economic situation as he described it - "I found this national debt wrapped in a big bow waiting for me when I stepped into the Oval office!" - his turnabout is understandable.