Obama Overexposed

If you're like me, you probably feel like Obama has been our President for a year or more. But, in reality, it's only been 102 days. That's because it has been a non-stop, two, three, or even four speeches a day timetable for this guy since he began running in 2007. To a large extent, he still acts like he's running and not like he actually got the job. You've got to wonder! When does he have any time to do all those leadership things that we expect our President to do? I would personally like to know how many broken teleprompters he went through to achieve a pace of that many 20 to 30 minute speeches per day; every day .

For over a year, the national media has drooled and hung on his every word. Since being in office, he has garnered more press coverage than both the Clinton and Bush Presidencies combined (See Full Story). When he's getting on Air Force One, there's a speech and the news media covers it. When he get's off the plane, he's there, and the press is there to hear what he has to say. All the time, the cable new stations are glued to the guy.

For sure, Obama's biggest fan is Obama. He loves all the attention and it shows. I truly believe that getting in front of the cameras is a form of "meth" for Obama and he's figuratively got a multi-rock habit. But, the "rock star" image is finally starting to fade. The legit daily polls like Gallup and Rasmussen are showing a constant decline in his favorable numbers and a more dramatic increase in his unfavorability ratings.

This week, George Will wrote an excellent article titled the "Unsilent Barack" in which he outlined his belief that Obama is becoming too ever-present; and, I agree. To me, Obama is like the uncle that came to visit for just a week, a year ago, and he's still here. I think a good indicator of that fact was this week's prime time news conference; the third in just so many months. This week's conference only got 29 million viewers. Previously, he had two evening news conferences that garnered 40 million viewers, last month, and 49 million viewers in the month prior (See Full Story).

In the link above, about the falling viewership for Obama's news conference, the writer noted that Fox elected not to show the President's new conference. The writer also implied that Fox, in doing so, thought that they might get more viewers for it's hit show "Lie To Me." However, as the writer states, they had the same amount of viewers as they did the week before. I think the writer is missing a big point here. The point is that, in maintaining it's ratings, no body left that "Lie To Me" show to view this President's newser. That shows a complete disinterest in what Obama had to say. This is despite the fact that we are in the midst of both an economic and a medical crisis.

I think that a lot of people are starting to see that Obama's news conferences are as staged and orchestrated as everything else that he does. With an Obama news conference, everything is controlled to insure that no tough questions are thrown at him and that he is never blindsided. He has a specific list of people that he will call on and the questions are almost too softball to believe that they are not being pre-screened. There are never any followup questions. With Obama, gone are the days where the Press Corps is constantly raising their hands to get called on and the President would randomly point to someone for a question.

If Obama keeps up his constant "in your face" practice and does no more than hype himself in doing so, people are going to be turned off. Most people can't stand someone who only talks constantly about themselves or is always blaming someone else for any problems. Clearly, this President spends all of his time trying to convince you that he is what he says he is. But, in reality, great Presidents are great, not because of what they say, but because the people of this country think so based on performance. I think Obama is making a big mistake with his constant exposure. In the end, I believe people will just get tired of him and think less of him. But, that's just my opinion.