Obama’s Weekend Media Adventure

Michael Franc / September 18, 2009

Sunday’s unprecedented presidential tour of (most of) the network news represents a subtle admission on the part of White House strategists that surely must unnerve his liberal allies. Obama, they seem to have concluded, is the only Administration official capable of making the case to the American people. Where, one must ask, are the usual suspects who traditionally man the battlements and carry the president’s message on major policy initiatives?

Take another look at those YouTube videos of Sen. Arlen Specter’s raucous early August town hall meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius’ shrill demeanor and obvious impatience with the “mob” of Pennsylvania constituents has relegated her to the Administration’s “B” team. The would-be health czar, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, an able communicator and acknowledged health expert, has a permanent seat on the bench for obvious reasons. The current health czar, Nancy Ann DeParle, knows the technicalities of health policy but lacks the communications skills now in demand. And no responsible Administration strategist wants to trust the President’s premier domestic policy initiative, indeed his political legacy, to Vice President Joe Biden. (more…)