I keep expecting Barack Obama to say something electric or wowser when he’s interviewed, as he was yesterday by Pastor Rick Warren during yesterday’s Saddleback Church civil forum. It’s not that he lacks charm or feeling when he speaks, or that he fails to express his beliefs plainly or concisely. I guess I’ve just heard him speak so often that he holds no surprises. He can’t not be careful. Not that I expect him to be cavalier. Not in this rancid predatory climate.
I know he’ll probably make history when he delivers his big closing-night speech in Denver, which will happen a week from this coming Thursday. I guess I’m just easily bored because whenever he speaks off the cuff, he always seems to go for the bunt. What I’d like to hear him say, I suppose, is something Eric Rothian or Tom Stoppard-esque or early David Mamet-level. Zappers, zingers, sliders. As it is now I feel like I know what he’s going to say before he says it, and it’s always right across the plate. And more often slow than fast.
As for the content of yesterday’s Saddleback discussion, I’m more or less with Zennie Abraham.