The President Finally Realizes The Power Of Language

Interesting story in today's Wall Street Journal highlighting how the President has recently dialed back his aggressive language toward Wall Street.   Credit to Obama for softening his tone for a few reasons.

First, the President is smart enough to know one cannot lump all of Wall Street into a single entity.   Wall Street is a term of art, with hundreds if not thousands of different roles, jobs and personalities.   Many of those considered to work on "the Street" have zero to do with anything making headlines.    If one police officer is caught doing something illegal or unethical, it would be wrong to suggest that all of law enforcement has a problem.   Individuals cannot represent a group.

Second, it is counterproductive to verbally attack those whose help you now need to solve the very problem you have told America they created.    Bankers are well educated enough to play the game, and know they are being villified.   The paragraph below from the story highlights the point.    The bankers as a group realize they are being made to be the villains, so why should the administration now expect their help without giving something back in return:

Bankers were shell-shocked, especially when Congress moved to heavily tax bonuses. When administration officials began calling them to talk about the next phase of the bailout, the bankers turned the tables. They used the calls to lobby against the antibonus legislation, Wall Street executives say. Several big firms called Treasury and White House officials to urge a more reasonable approach, both sides say. The banks' message: If you want our help to get credit flowing again to consumers and businesses, stop the rush to penalize our bonuses.

The story also brings to light an interesting aspect of how easily some of this harmful language can be created.  Note how the President's speechwriter was working on a draft that included a sentence that would have the President stoke American anger at Wall Street:

When chief speechwriter Jon Favreau began working on the president's late-February joint address to Congress, he included draft language criticizing Wall Street for helping trigger the economic downturn and stating that "Americans are justifiably angry" at the banks -- sentiments the president had expressed many times before.

The phrase "justifiably angry" serves the primary purpose of finding a politically easy group to blame.   Instead of the "new era of individual responsibility" the President espoused in prior speeches, instead we would've heard that the problems we face are the fault of others.    The "bankers" at the thousands of firms who never made subprime loans, never bought credit default swaps, never have even physically seen Wall Street are now being portrayed as the villains.   Thankfully, the line was edited and removed.

Jon Favreau is viewed as a wunderkind and is clearly a smart and succesful fellow.   But he is also just 27 years old, has little professional experience outside of politics,  and for all practical matters knows little about Wall Street or the economy.    His entire post-college career has been in speechwriting and campaigning.   Yet he possesses the power to create and cast blame on specific groups, such as bankers, with the simple stroke of a pen.   One sentence in a Presidential speech heard by millions can easily sway public opinion, justified or not.   The pen - or PC - is mightier than the sword, and the President's staff needs to use its powerful opinion weapon to heal and change the course of America, not try to find blame in a problem that is so large it cannot fall on one group alone.