In his speech to the United Nations last week, President Obama really broke the presidential pattern. At a glance these annual turns before the General Assembly are all alike. The president stands alone, dwarfed by the absurdly outsized dais angled together from blue-green granite, while the extravagantly dressed audience sits through long stretches of stony silence. The speech itself is always grandiose. Even back in the 1990s, when the world appeared to be going swimmingly, relatively speaking, the president of the United States felt he had to inform the assembled nations about "the great challenges" that "still confront us."
It's a safe bet that great challenges will be confronting us, because even if they weren't, the world's political and diplomatic leaders would invent them to keep themselves busy. Boldly (always boldly) asserting the existence of such challenges lends an urgency that earns the president's speech a mention on the evening news, at least. And it makes the president appear indispensable--not only as the man who calls the world's attention to great challenges but also as the man who, with help from his attendants, will wrestle the challenges to the ground.
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