TALK ALL YOU WANT, JUST DON'T DO ANYTHING:

The Unpersuasive Orator: Obama may sound good, but he doesn't close the sale. (Fred Barnes, 06/08/2009, Weekly Standard)

With every major speech or press conference, the media and a sizable chunk of the political community--including many Republicans--assume Obama has carried the day. Actually, he rarely has.

The most striking example is Obama's strenuous defense of his decision to close Guantánamo pris-on by next January 22 and to bar "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding in questioning captured terrorists. He gave a highly publicized address on this policy last month. After the speech, support for closing Guantánamo fell. [...]

Nor has the president been able to increase support for other terrorist-related policies. Public approval for Obama's policy of not using "torture" to interrogate terrorists dipped from 58 percent in January to 49 percent in April in ABC News/Washington Post polling. Rasmussen found overwhelming opposition, 57-to-28 percent, to Obama's plan to bring Guantánamo prisoners to the United States.

The negative drift in public opinion isn't entirely due to Obama. "It's not so much the rhetoric," Rasmussen says. Rather, "it's the reality" of dealing with the problem of what to do with the terrorists jailed at Guantánamo. "The more people hear about it," the less they support Obama's policy.