It takes a lot to shock those eyes wide open, but what he sees now gets his attention, to say nothing of ours. Until now, during much of the story’s slow, suggestive buildup, O.J.’s gaze has been downcast and hard to read, reflecting an indifference that verges on exhaustion. Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya), who peers up from the darkness of a stalled truck as something very big and very bad looms overhead. Those eyes, wide and terrified, belong to a Southern California horse rancher named O.J. For the president, that moment can't come soon enough.Given all the surreally unnerving sights there are to see in Jordan Peele’s “Nope” - a debris-choked windstorm, a weirdly undulating tunnel, a circular is-that-what-I-think-it-is gliding in and out of the clouds - it seems fitting that one of the movie’s most arresting images should be of a pair of eyes. He was at his feistiest on Thursday when he skewered some of the more, um, exotic GOP ideas like eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency. But the day Rick Perry or Mitt Romney or someone else becomes the titular leader of the opposition, the debate will be as much about their ideas and their foibles.
Fairly or not, he'll be the face of the economy, the icon of gridlock. Until then, Obama will seem constrained, frustrated.
There will be a presumptive Republican nominee by the spring, barring a long fight to the convention. The good news for Obama is what's unsaid, unpolled: The conversation will change, and it will benefit him. The poll was taken in early September, when the president unveiled his American Jobs Act. The most recent United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll suggests Americans remain unconvinced that either party's agenda can significantly dent the nation's longest period of sustained unemployment since the Depression. They may not like his record, but they're listening to where he wants to take the country. Polls have shown support for them and that people trust him more in the abstract to make the right decisions on the economy. Obama's right to say his individual ideas are popular. He's got a dispirited left that wants more fight and vigor, even though he's given them a lot more of both lately, and a Republican House that's in no mood to pass his legislation.
Comparisons to the tea party are flip, but both movements, whatever their differences, are edgy challenges that reflect wider anxieties. Obama didn't encourage the protests-no presidential candidate drawing campaign funds would dare to-but he didn't condemn them either, despite some altercations that have taken place with police. It's no wonder Obama was asked twice about the Occupy Wall Street protests that have filled Manhattan's financial district with thousands of irate protesters who vow to continue their demonstrations and take them to other cities, including Washington. Obama not only faces a similar political conundrum in Congress, but carries the much weightier burden of an economy that, unlike Clinton's, is at best stagnant, and where widespread, long-term unemployment has spoiled the national mood. The power of our ideas gives me relevance." Clinton famously got some things done-welfare reform, a balanced budget-that sped his reelection. "The president is relevant," Clinton said. "Are people feeling cynical about the prospects for positive action in this city? Absolutely."ĭoubts about his ability to get anything done in 2011 seem, famously, reminiscent of 1995 when Bill Clinton was asked if he was relevant following the GOP landslide the previous year. So the really fierce urgency is about setting up a contrast with the Republican Party, which Obama has been eager to portray as obstructionist-and the GOP has given him plenty of reason to say so. phrase "the fierce urgency of now." On Thursday, Obama's urgency was ostensibly about trying to pass the bill that promises everything from payroll tax cuts and other incentives for businesses to hire to more infrastructure spending.īut that bill can't pass and won't pass.
MORE FROM NATIONAL JOURNAL: Poll: Romney Leads Obama on Economy The 10-Year Tragedy Next Stop: Animal Houseĭuring his 2008 campaign, Obama often invoked the Martin Luther King Jr.
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