WASHINGTON — On the most deadly day here since Sept. 11, 2001, with the capital reeling over the familiar scene of a mass shooting by a madman, the chief executive stepped to the microphones and captured the heartbreak.
It wasn't the chief executive of the nation. It was Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief operating officer of MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where three of those injured were being treated.
"There's something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate," she said, her voice stoic but laced with emotion. "There's something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries. There is something wrong, and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it." She concluded: "This is not America."
President Barack Obama also gave a speech Monday, talking at the White House while the drama unfolded at the supposedly secure Navy Yard nearby. He could have posted his original remarks on the White House website and replaced them with a cri de coeur on gun control, or comfort for the shaken city. The 12 who died were, after all, under his aegis as workers in a federal building.
Jarringly, Obama went ahead with his political attack, briefly addressing the slaughter before moving on to jab Republicans over the corporate tax rate and resistance to Obamacare.
Just as with the address to the nation on Syria last week, Obama went ahead with a speech overtaken by events.
The man who connected so electrically and facilely in 2008, causing Americans to overlook his thin resume, cannot seem to connect anymore. Obama is having trouble establishing trust with once reliable factions: grass-roots Democrats and liberals in Congress.
As Peter Baker wrote in The Times, the president is increasingly "frustrated" by the defiance of Democrats who are despairing of his passive, reactive leadership.
Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana on the banking committee, told Jonathan Martin for Politico in February, after he scraped through to a second term, that the president was not engaged with the Hill, and that he was sorely missing aides like Rahm Emanuel, who tirelessly worked and stroked Democrats in Congress. Tester was one of three Democrats who spurned the president on his favorite to run the Federal Reserve, Larry Summers. Summers was allowed to twist in the wind, like Susan Rice before him.
Obama still has a secret weapon: congressional Republicans, who might yet shut down the government or cause a cataclysmic default and make the president look good.
But, for now, puzzlement grows over the contrast between Obama's campaign leaps and his governing lassitude.
"The president is a very muddled and entrenched figure who needs to get out of a defensive crouch and get some fresh ideas," said Obama biographer Richard Wolffe.
Unlike Bill Clinton, who excels at boiling down complex arguments to simple ones, Obama prefers to wallow in the weeds, reminding people he's the smartest man in the room and expecting support because he feels he is only doing what's complicated and right.
ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked the president about criticism of the administration's serpentine Syria policy, citing a frustrated backer of the plan to strike Syria, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Corker said that the careering around left Obama diminished as president, and he observed that the president seemed caged in the role, like he wanted to "slip the noose."
"I think that folks here in Washington like to grade on style," Obama said.
Why is it so often his style to be unable to sell substance — even on issues here most people agree with him?
Dowd writes for The New York Times.