Colin Powell on the first task for the next President

Prior to delivering his endorsement, there was this interesting exchange between Brokaw and Powell on Meet the Press:

"MR. BROKAW: If you were called into the Oval Office on January 21st by the new president, whoever it happens to be, and he said to you, 'General Powell, I need from you your recommendation on where I begin. What should be my priorities?' Where would you start?

GEN. POWELL: I would start with talking to the American people and talking to the world, and conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America's role in the world.

The problems will always be there, and there's going to be a crisis come along in the 21st or 22nd of January that we don't even know about right now. And so I think what the president has to do is to start using the power of the Oval Office and the power of his personality to convince the American people and to convince the world that America is solid, America is going to move forward, and we're going to fix our economic problems, we're going to meet our overseas obligations. But restoring a sense of purpose, a sense of confidence in the American people and, in the international community, in America."

Right there, I think, is why all of the dismissal of eloquence, of rhetorical skill -- going back to Hillary Clinton during the primaries -- has been wrong-headed. Much of the power of the modern presidency is rhetorical. Yes, there have been effective presidents who were not eloquent, but it's hard to think of one who successfully led the nation during a time of national crisis or transformation. Even the current president, not known by any means for his eloquence, was at his most effective when he ably delivered the eloquent speech addressing Congress after 9/11. Prior to that speech, there still were doubts about his ability to handle the crisis, fueled in part by the clumsiness of his first rhetorical efforts. In any event, we face multiple crises as a nation: two protracted wars, a global financial and economic crisis, global warming -- the next president will face daunting challenges, and he will need to rally the support and optimism of a nation that is discouraged, cynical, and pessimistic. He also will need to repair the damage that the current administration has done to our image among both our friends and our enemies. So, as Powell suggested here (and in his press conference afterward) rhetoric does matter.