Mr. President: Look at Us!

Today President Obama gave a short speech on the economy and the deaths in Afghanistan. As those of you who read my blogs know, I am a big supporter of the President. I have no doubt that he is doing all he can on the economy. But today I wanted very few things from him, and I got none of them. I wanted the President to:

1. Look me in the eye. Ditch the two teleprompters and use one that allows you to speak to me directly.

2. Talk to me directly. Don't refer to me as "the American people". Address me as "you". As in, "I know that you are worried about the economy. I know times have been hard for you. Here is why I am still hopeful...."

3. Tell me something new. I know you support increasing taxes on the rich. I do too. I know you think we should extend unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday. I agree with that. But today was not a day to repeat your previous recommendations. Is there nothing new to add? You said there are lots of plans but all we need is political will. Well, we apparently don't have even that, so the stock market reacted accordingly. It went further down.

4. Call Congress back to work. What's the down side of that? They get six weeks off while we are in free fall economically? I doubt that any constituents would mind if they all got back to work right now.

Is this only a cosmetic issue, this looking you in the eye thing? I don't think so. Given that there was no new news to be delivered, the medium HAD to be the message. And the medium did not do its job.