Obama Talking Down to the American People

Does he or doesn't he?

Barack Obama claims that he doesn't talk down to Americans, that he has great confidence in the nation's people.

Transcript, CNBC interview, January 7, 2009

JOHN HARWOOD: When you deliver your speech on January 20th, do you see yourself as having the same task of reassurance for the American people? And how do you balance that with the need to convey the urgency of doing so?

BARACK OBAMA: Well...(unintelligible)...if you look--as you might imagine, I've been ready inaugural speeches lately, and if you look at FDR's first speech, the line that's remembered is "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." But actually the bulk of the speech centered around the need to act and act now. And he explained, I think, the nature of the crisis, both in his inaugural speech and subsequent fireside chats, as well as anybody. This is a bit of advice that I received from one of the former presidents. He said, `Part of the reason, Barack, that you're doing well right now is because you don't talk down to the American people, you play it straight and just explain what it is that's taking place.' And I think that--I have such confidence in the American people. If you just play it straight with them, if you explain to them, here's our challenge, here's how we've gotten here and here's where I think we need to go, then I have enormous confidence that the American people will rise up to the challenge. So my job, both in the inauguration speech and in the months to come, is simply to explain as honestly and truthfully as possible what the circumstances are, what the best ideas are that are out there in terms of meeting those challenges, and if I do that, I feel confident that we'll come together to solve these problems.

I don't know which former president commented that Obama doesn't talk down to the American people.

I don't fully agree with that gentleman's assessment of Obama.

Jesse Jackson has accused Obama of talking down to Americans. In fact, he was quite incensed by what he perceived to be Obama's condescension.

JESSE JACKSON: See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people about this faith based... I wanna cut his nuts off.

I think there have been occasions when Obama has talked down to Americans. Maybe he's gained confidence in us since he was elected.

The way I see it-- Obama's belief that government should have a dramatically greater role in our lives and his plan to grow government, giving it more power, doesn't reveal that he has a whole lot of confidence in Americans.