Michael Wolff says Obama has become unbearably tedious already:
The guy just doesn't know what to say. He can't connect. Emotions are here, he's over there. He can't get the words to match the situation...
...You can see the fundamental mistake he's making. Having been so successfully elected, he's acting like people actually want to hear what he thinks. He's the great earnest bore at the dinner party. Instead of singing for his supper, he's just talking—and going on at length. The real job of making people part of the story you're telling, of having them hang on your every word, of getting the tone and detail right, the hard job of holding a conversation, he ain't doing.He's cold; he's prickly; he's uncomfortable; he's not funny; and he's getting awfully tedious...
...This guy is leaden and this show is in trouble.
I think he overstates it for effect, but I see what he means. I've observed a few times, last night among them, that there arises what seems to me a fairly obvious chance to crack a joke or say something endearing and it just doesn't come to him.
With Leno, for example, they were talking about basketball. Leno asked him something like, "C'mon, tell the truth, they throw games against you." Obama answered with something to the effect that the Secret Service guys with guns might scare his opponents. Not terrible. But not funny, really, at all. When Leno spoke, it occured to me that he might say, "You know, I have noticed how much better my game has gotten since I became president." That's sort of funny. But Obama just doesn't have a catalogue of one-liners at all, or even think that way.
He is kind of an earnest liberal. Michael has little use for earnest liberals, which is fair. But I think the Carter business is premature. The main reason for Carter's failure was not that he was a tedious fellow, but that he was a bad president who didn't do a good job. If Obama does do a good job, by contrast, all boredom will likely be forgiven and perhaps even appreciated.
