Barack Obama’s First Big Blunder

Nope. Not the Tom Daschle matter. Just a blip, and let’s face it — most Americans couldn’t care less about who runs the Department of Health and Human Services.

So then: the Treasury secretary’s little personal tangle with TurboTax? Nah. Sure, it revealed a flaw in the Obama vetting operation, but the “Geithner problem” hit right at the peak of the Obamic honeymoon and registered in low single digits on the scale of political seismology.

No. President Obama’s biggest stumble to date took place Thursday evening down in Williamsburg, Va., when he addressed a meeting of House Democrats. Not only was Obama caught being a typical politician, but it was broadcast live and nationwide.

To be fair, Obama is head of the Democratic Party — a political party feeling pretty good about itself right now — and offering up a red-meat political speech would certainly be within the bounds of acceptability — during normal times. But these are not normal times. Folks are hurting and folks are worried.

On the eve before we learned that nearly 600,000 (more) of our fellow countrymen (Democrats and Republicans alike) lost their jobs last month, the president of all the people delivered a whiny, snarky, blame-gamey, cranky, typical campaign-style speech that did nothing to inspire those watching to think that their new president was “above the fray” and focusing like a laser on the fact that they are scared to death of losing their jobs, too, if they haven’t already.

Re-reading the speech just now, I have to admit there isn’t much there that seems incendiary. But watching it last night, before a hootin’-and-hollerin’ roomful of Democrats, it came across like an “in-your-face” attack against those nasty Republicans who got us in this mess to start with. Might be absolutely true — but I thought we were supposed to be beyond all that.

Obama: “First of all, I found this deficit when I showed up. (Applause.) No. 1. (Applause.) I found this national debt doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.”

Like I said, reading the speech is a little different than the impression I had watching it. I hate to say this, since I don’t want to do or say anything that shuts us out of any room where a public official is speaking, but Obama should have done the red meat behind closed doors and with the cameras off.

This is the president of all the people part of the proceedings. The campaign is done. And whenever — and wherever — he speaks, no matter who is sitting in the audience, Obama needs to remember that the rest of America is watching, too. Hopefully, for him, not too many were last night. He didn’t come across like an inspirational leader seeking to bring us together. He looked like a guy still trying to get the job.

Mr. President, you have the job, sir. Plenty of time later for snarky, when we get back to some form of normalcy. And this bit of free advice: Right now, sir, from a media standpoint, you are getting dangerously close to be being a little overexposed. Get the congressional leaders in a room this weekend. Roll up the sleeves. Burn the oil. A stimulus bill could be finalized this weekend. I thought this was an emergency. Your speech (and more importantly, your tone) last night came precariously close to communicating that this is business as usual.