Recently I exchanged a few emails with Elvin T. Lim, a professor
of government at Wesleyan University and author of the book
The Anti Intellectual Presidency. Lim's particular
expertise is in the area of political communication, and I found
his comments about Barack Obama's oratory to be particularly
interesting.
The key to Barack Obama's rhetorical success is not too
different from Ronald Reagan's. Recall that many liberals
thought Reagan's speeches too vacuous, but conservatives
thought they were sublime. Well, the tables have
turned. Many conservatives today think that Obama offers
platitudes (a charge that you will recall Hillary Clinton made
during the primary season), but liberals think his speeches are
thoughtful and considered.
I don't think this perfect inversion is coincidental. In both
cases, those who already agreed with a
particular president read substance into his
rhetorical symbology but those who disagreed with him saw
only empty soundbites. Both supporters and detractors of Obama
and Reagan are right. Obama and Reagan (and indeed Franklin
Roosvelt and Abraham Lincoln and other "great" American
orators) shared at least one thing in common - they knew
how to use "spacious" rhetoric to generate assent by appealing
to mythic ideas without getting bogged down by divisive
details. They were both vacuous and intellectual. It is this
hybridity that explains Obama's spellbinding magic.
