Turning away from the American Public, Obama Embraces Us

At the end of his 9-minute announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s demise, President Obama threw his audience an unexpected behind-the-Barak-pass. Speech over, he turned 180 degrees and ambled off down a hallway with his backside to his audience. A remarkable forensic sayonara from an American president.

To decode that nonverbal passage, this blog spoke with several marketing professors and practitioners. “It’s about closure,” one of them remarked. “By showing us his back, he’s closing the book on Bin Laden and much of the 9/11 trauma. Obama’s body says better than W’s words ever did:  Mission Accomplished!" “After walking away from us, Obama takes a sharp left and disappears into another room,” noted a second observer. “His gait is calm and business-like as if he’s about to take care of more business of state, even though the nation is about to party.”

Another marketing pundit was more prescient: “By walking ahead and away from us, especially when he’s just registered a political slam dunk, Obama is inviting us to follow him--for six more years.”

The final 30 seconds of the Obama speech: