In fairness, I do think Obama is much easier to listen to than President Bush was in such situations. Listening to Bush in his press conferences was stressful for me in a way that it isn’t with Obama. Part of that is no doubt that I was hoping Bush would “stick the landing” in his sentences in a way that I don’t with Obama. Bush was the nominal spokesman for ideas I believed in, or at least some of them. Obama is trying to sell the country on ideas I don’t believe in. So his gaffes don’t hurt the way Bush’s did.

Put more plainly, I think this is just another example of why Bush supporters who thought that his way of talking was an asset were so wrong. It always amazed me that the party of Reagan (AKA “the Great Communicator) could so quickly turn on the idea that having an articulate spokesman for our ideas was overrated or unnecessary. Bush talks “American,” people would tell me. I don’t care whether he talks American or the Queen’s English, so long as the conservative standard-bearer can win arguments. One of the great failings of Bush’s presidency is that he couldn’t persuade people who didn’t already agree with him. One of Obama’s great advantages is that he can.