Obama’s Debate Debacle and Broader Problem In One Word

The word isn’t what Obama is, or has, but what he all too often has not. The debate focused my thinking on it. I meant to Tweet, or mention it, but forgot.

Call it Collins’: reserved dignity; propriety and good taste in behavior and speech, as of a leader or official;

… or the: high seriousness (as in a person’s bearing or in the treatment of a subject) of Websters.

Even when Obama has reached for it, he’s come up short, but has gotten by with what one might more precisely call pomp and circumstance.

It’s something Americans want and perhaps even need to see in their President. But Obama has spent so much time being liked by the many and even loved by some, from The View, to MTV and elsewhere, he’s rarely if ever displayed it.

Finally, when America tuned in to watch the recent debate in Denver, they realized, the emperor may have been wearing clothes that night, … but Barack Obama lacked – and in general lacks – gravitas.