Obama’s State of the Union: Can an orator be transformed to a leader, executive, and statesman?

President Obama’s State of the Union served as another demonstration of the greatest orator since Winston Churchill (and perhaps even going further back in history.) Being a great orator, however, does not make a good executive, nor an effective statesman. 

Unlike  Churchill, an often drunk Englishman, Obama does not seem to posses leadership skills. In support of the young American President, unlike Winston Churchill, Obama’s nation is not subjected to actual military threat to its homeland.

The threats do explain why Churchill was such an effective leader, the 9/11 threat within the United States, for example, even transformed the generally inept George W. Bush, to a leader, even though only for the moment. Threats rallying effect on a nation notwithstanding, “leaders are born, not made,” that adage seem to apply to Barak Obama, in much the same way that it applied to George W. Bush, and to Jimmy Carter.

In adition of not being an effective leader, Barak Hussein Obama is not a good and experienced executive. Not only that, Obama did not feel it necessary to staff his Administration with people with management experience, but rather than with politicians. Capable politicians, perhaps, but politicians, nevertheless. From the brilliant Rham Emanuel, to the clever David Axelrod, Obama is not supported by executives who are capable of managing the business of the nation.

President Obama’s State of the Union was full of platitudes, he again tried to please everyone, but pleased only a few. No concrete proposal, but rather many generalities; and learning from President Clinton, Obama cited specific examples of, for example, how the stimulus is working. The different between Obama and Clinton had to do with the relevance of the examples they cited. With millions of jobs lost since he took office, Obama’s examples of jobs gains were in two rather than seven digits.

The State of the Union could have served to boost Obama’s standing as a leader, instead it was another demonstration of oratory skills, but it was a presentation that generally lacked content; one may ask: Where is the meat, Mr. President? Where is the meat?