So when do we get to talk about how amazingly horrible, tone-deaf and unpresidential Barack Obamas response was to the Ferguson grand jury decision? From a communication standpoint, it has to be one of the worst individual moments of his entire presidency. To be clear, no one expected the president to go out and co-sign the words of Mike Browns stepfather to burn the b- down. But in heated times like the minutes after the prosecutor’s announcement, if the president is going to speak, he is expected to deliver a message, which should have among its primary objectives healing a divided nation and thereby conveying an expression of empathy with the distraught. Im not saying thats right, and I’m definitely not saying that is enough. I am saying that is the job of the president. (Ironically, many consider presidential *candidate* Robert Kennedy’s response/announcement of MLK’s assassination to a crowd in the middle of an Indianapolis black community as the standard for such situations with respect to tone and words). EVERYTHING about President Obama’s response to the Ferguson grand jury decision was so atrocious that it should embarrass every member of the White House: from the words, to the tone, to the location/backdrop (press room), to the lack of a teleprompter, to the presence of an audience (thereby preventing a direct focus into the camera to the American people), to the decision to take a question afterwards. I think people aren’t talking about it more because he was preceded by the craptacular performance of Robert McCullough. But Barack Obama ain’t no second-rate politician from a county in the Midwest who no one ever heard of 4 months ago. He’s the “leader of the free world,” with a great oratorical skill set and access to the industry’s top professionals in political communication/imagery and he and his staff had a week to prepare remarks. I fall short of saying White House staff should be fired, because ultimately the president signed off on them, and it is wise to guess his closest advisor and head liaison to the black community, Valerie Jarrett, did as well. Heck, POTUS might have even written much of it/established the tone himself. Which begets another conversation...
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 11:15:45 +0000
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