WATCH President Carter’s 1979 “Crisis of Confidence Speech”: a game effort and an abject failure

As President Obama prepares for his much-anticipated speech on jobs next month, we thought it well to share as our Vital Speech of the Week the weird and ultimately ineffectual “Crisis of Confidence Speech,” given at a similarly low ebb, three years into in President Jimmy Carter’s term.

If you’ve never seen the speech—or haven’t seen it since it aired on July 15, 1979—it’s an amazing study in: game efforts to communicate … and tragic rhetorical overreaching (Carter actually accuses the American public of living spiritually empty, purposeless lives, and then proposes to solve their crisis with a huge national movement to achieve energy independence).

The speech is mesmerizing—and, for anyone hoping to use a speech to make a fresh start—a cautionary lesson. —David Murray, Editor; Vital Speeches of the Day