I’m a speech junkie – a veritable connoisseur of oratory.

And Barack Obama is, undeniably, an excellent speaker, with great physical presence and perfect pitch – at least, in the short, measured clips I’ve caught of him.

I’ve not yet been exposed to a full speech.

But Daniel Henninger has – and it’s not all roses for Obama or his acolytes.

Oh, the speech starts with a bang – sort of like Obama’s political career itself…:

The speech was classic Obama. Beautifully written and beautifully delivered, the words soaring to the rafters of a Madison, Wis., auditorium filled mostly with 17,000 cheering students. The rookie senator had just come off blowouts of Hillary in Virginia and Maryland.

The senator’s charisma and appeal has been undeniable. He is almost insanely eloquent.

Cool

But then…: 

Still, about halfway into this (very long) speech, the feeling was hard to shake: This is getting hard to listen to. Again and again. 

A few weeks ago, we noted that Obama “gets” Reagan – at least, the basics; put out a message of hope, delivered with passion, without talking down to the listener.

Some say he really does get it.  On the other hand, Henninger notices something else:

Up to now, the force of Sen. Obama’s physical presentation has so dazzled audiences that it has been hard to focus on precisely what he is saying. “Yes, we can! Yes, we can!” Can what?

Listen closely to that Tuesday night Wisconsin speech. Unhinge yourself from the mesmerizing voice. What one hears is a message that is largely negative, illustrated with anecdotes of unremitting bleakness. Heavy with class warfare, it is a speech that could have been delivered by a Democrat in 1968, or even 1928.

Here is the edited version, stripped of the flying surfboard:

“Our road will not be easy . . . the cynics. . . where lobbyists write check after check and Exxon turns record profits . . . That’s what happens when lobbyists set the agenda. . . It’s a game where trade deals like Nafta ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart . . . It’s a game . . . CEO bonuses . . . while another mother goes without health care for her sick child . . . We can’t keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace . . . even if they’re not rich . . .”

Here’s his America: “lies awake at night wondering how he’s going to pay the bills . . . she works the night shift after a full day of college and still can’t afford health care for a sister who’s ill . . . the senior I met who lost his pension when the company he gave his life to went bankrupt . . . the teacher who works at Dunkin’ Donuts after school just to make ends meet . . . I was not born into money or status . . . I’ve fought to bring jobs to the jobless in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant . . . to make sure people weren’t denied their rights because of what they looked like or where they came from . . . Now we carry our message to farms and factories.”

It ends: “We can cast off our doubts and fears and cynicism because our dream will not be deferred; our future will not be denied; and our time for change has come.”

I am not saying all of this is false. But it is a depressing message to ride all the way to the White House

Wrapping Jimmy Carter’s message in Ronald-Reagan-style rhetoric, in other words.

I’ll have to try to dig out some transcripts.