Presidential Calm Not Always Cool

I get that we have a cool, calm and collected president. I don’t think it’s a character flaw when your CEO refuses to rant and rage. Informed, dispassionate decision-making–hardly synonymous with being “dialed out”–must be part of leadership DNA.

Having said that, President Barack Obama–in the sixth year of his presidency–continues to look like he still needs professional communications help. Especially when everything he says outside of a golf foursome–inevitably to allies, adversaries, U.S. politicians and the American public–has major implications.

“Jihadists” aren’t just “folks.” ISIS was never a “JV team.” And “We don’t have a strategy yet,” even if true, just can’t be verbalized without sending counterproductive signals. It conveys indecision even if intended to connote methodical caution. Is he being counseled by “JV advisers”?

Who does the president truly listen to? Valerie Jarrett? David Axelrod? Vernon Jordan? Sasha Obama?

No, we wouldn’t want him to do it often, but I do wish it had been the president who, in channeling this country’s gut collective feeling over the beheadings of American journalists, had said– with serious inflection–that we would follow these demonic barbarians to “the gates of hell.” Not just bring them to “justice.”

Sometimes we need that too.

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