The closer he gets.....

....the more indiscernible he is.

A moment of cognitive weirdness as I entered the O'Hare Admirals Club this morning. There, on a distant large screen TV, the president was speaking, carried live on CNN. The audio was low enough that I couldn't hear the words, but I assumed, given the gravity of his demeanor, that it was another address about terrorism, security issues, etc. I approached.

Nope. Wrong.

He was giving a speech about math and science education initiatives.

I stared at the screen for a while, troubled. And what crystallized for me about Obama is that his game face conveys no clue about the content of his message---and that is just plain weird, folks. Shouldn't a speech about teaching and kids be a bit more upbeat and lively than a stern Come to Jesus moment about the failures of our national intelligence systems?

Cool and cerebral? Love that!! Flat and emotionless? That just won't do if he wants to continue to rally us to the causes and challenges ahead, of which there are many.

Surely there is some cause for joyfulness during these troubled weeks.