Is President Obama Sincere?

Probably he is. Sure. Why wouldn't he be?

I've been reading analyses of what the President intends to say for several weeks now. The New York Times today reported that a video "previewing themes" had been sent out. The video "made plain that his speech would be geared more broadly toward the political center, to independent voters and business owners and executives alienated by the expansion of government and the partisan legislative fights of the past two years."

So we don't know yet what he is going to say, but we know who he is going to effect and what state he thinks they are in (alienated). It's hard for me to see how anyone can give a speech and expect to be really heard when we know already the effect he hopes to achieve.

So I got to thinking how that would work on a date. I've had to do some dating recently and it's still fresh in my mind. Ordinarily, you might think I want to know how my date is feeling, what has been happening in her life, what she wants to eat or drink, what she has read recently that has interested her, and maybe whether she'd like to go to a movie with me. That sounds pretty ordinary, doesn't it?

Now imagine that she has an earpiece and a hidden microphone and a girlfriend sitting at another table. The girlfriend gives me the treatment the press is giving the President, i.e., she says what effect I am trying to achieve by saying what I am saying. So my questions, in order, might look like this. He is trying to represent himself as genuinely interested in your welfare. He's trying to establish that you haven't been dating much or working too much. He's looking for a chance to buy you something hoping that you will have to sit here until you are done with it no matter how badly things are going. He's trying to imply that he is a cultured person--a reader of books--and checking on your reading choices at the same time. He's trying to get a commitment to a later date before you have a chance to assess this one.

The girlfriend didn't give me credit for much; she is wary on her friend's behalf. But the real damage is done, not by her implications that I am up to something sinister, but by presuming that my words have no meaning in themselves. Apparently what I am saying ought not be judged by what I actually said, but by what I probably meant. Everything I say is an attempt to achieve some goal or some leverage that can be used to achieve a goal. It is useless, apparently, to assume that I actually mean what I say. Or even that I mean what I say AND hope to achieve a certain goal.

That will be a very tough first date, but I think public officials--not just President Obama--get that all the time. What they say they mean is routinely set aside in favor of what the reporter thinks the speaker is trying to achieve. I'm sure that makes the reporter seem knowledgeable, but it makes the speaker look like a charlatan. If the speaker really does mean what he is saying, which I think we ought to admit is possible, it is a shame that so little attention will be paid to it.