Harvey Milk once famously said: “Politics is theatre.” Barack Obama has, intentionally, never grasped that fact.

Obama, whether you like him or not, is one of the most naturally-gifted politicians America has produced in a very long time. To oust Hillary Clinton in a Democratic primary as a freshman senator and go on to win two presidential elections convincingly — all by the age of 51 — is a resume that few will ever be able to match.

And yet, for all of his abilities and accomplishments, Obama simply has ever been willing to embrace the theatre end of politics, the idea that sometimes how things look matters as much as how they really are.

The latest example came late last month when, minutes after delivering a statement proclaiming himself “heartbroken” over the execution of journalist James Foley by the Islamic State, Obama went out and played a round of golf on Martha’s Vineyard. Last Sunday, in an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, Obama came close to acknowledging that that decision had been a mistake. He said (in part): “I should’ve anticipated the optics. Part of this job is also the theatre of it ... it’s not always something that comes naturally to me. But it matters.”

It definitely does not come naturally to him. At a forum featuring then candidate Obama at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the late fall of 2007, a young woman stood up and, in tears, told of how her father had been deported. It was heart-wrenching. And it was easy to imagine Hillary wading into the crowd, hugging the young woman and, in the process, creating a bit of political theatre that would have made the national news. Obama stood in the middle of the theatre in the round and delivered a totally proficient — and professorial — discourse on the problems with the country’s immigration laws. It felt like an opportunity missed.

So, why, knowing that theatre matters in politics, has Obama not spent at least some time over the intervening seven years between that Coe College event and today working to get better at it? Two big reasons.

First, Obama is, by nature, something of an introvert and a private person. (George W. Bush was too. Bill Clinton, not so much.) The hugging, high-fives and baby-kissing that comes to mind when most of us think about “politics” is not the sort of stuff he revels in. Remember that his political power was built on speech-giving. All of the most important moments in his political career were speeches: his “dumb wars” speech in 2002, his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner speech in late 2007, his Jeremiah Wright speech in spring 2008 — and so on and so forth.

Second, Obama’s 2008 presidential candidacy — not to mention more broadly how he imagines his space in the political firmament — was a reaction to Bill Clinton, the last Democrat elected to the nation’s highest office. (That fact was affirmed by the fact that he was running against another Clinton for the nomination.) Bill Clinton loved — and loves — the theatre of politics; he also happens to be a master at it. Obama, in defining himself against the Clintons — Bill and Hillary — purposely rejected what he considered empty acts that might look good but ultimately accomplished little to nothing.

For many of his most ardent supporters, Obama’s unwillingness to play the game of politics endears him. He believes in deeds not words, they argue. Fine. But, as even Obama said last Sunday, how things look can — and often does — influence how things are.

Six years into his presidency — and 53 years into his life — it seems unlikely that Obama will fundamentally change his approach as it relates to the theatre of politics. But, there was not only an acknowledgement that he had mishandled the Foley situation, but also a rare glimpse into his emotions in the interview with Chuck. After noting he was near tears during a conversation with Foley’s parents, Obama said: “I think everybody who knows me, including, I suspect, the press, understands that, you know, you take this stuff in. And it’s serious business. And you care about it deeply.”

The question is whether he will show, not tell, more often in his final two years in office.

— Washington Post