Carter's Malaise Speech

I love great speeches... the rights words said by the right people can really and truly change the world- or at least make an impact on it. So from time to time, I'll be offering my thoughts on some of history's greatest...

This pops up occasionally in the world of punditry as one of many parallels people seem to be eager to draw between President Obama and President Carter- people seem to condemn it as a depressing waste of everybody's time that generally bummed America out instead of giving America a pat on the back and telling it to 'get up off the mat.'

I wasn't alive in the late 70s, though I can't imagine it was all sunshine and daisies back then- but I was curious enough about this speech that people reference from time to time that I dug up some text online and read it.

First of all, it's long. Reallllllly long. I don't know how faster Carter spoke, but having grown up with President Clinton's never ending State of the Union Speeches and seen them give way to the more pithy speeches of George W. Bush, brevity is awesome in politicians. If Carter took his time giving this speech, people must have stopped paying attention.

Second of all, it doesn't seem to be all that shocking. Late 1970s America probably was going through a crisis of confidence and I'm willing to bet everybody at the time knew it. It's not as if this was a shocking announcement that America was depressed or anything.

Third of all, the money quote:

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose

Telling Americans we're mindless, shallow consumers? Now that's what I call telling truth to power. Mad props for a ballsy move! Unfortunately, it's probably not what you want to tell prospective voters.

Fourth of all, money quote number 2:

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.

Oil shale? Evil, evil, evil oil shale? Suuuuuurely NOT!

Overall: Surprise, surprise, not as a horrific as punditry would have us believe. President Carter seemed to be catching the mood of the country and saying what everbody knew anyway and calling on people to buckle down and git 'er done, so to speak. Unfortunately, people seemed to want to be told that America kicks ass!