The 21st-century fireside chat: Did Obama connect?

At a harrowing national moment, Franklin D. Roosevelt commandeered the young airwaves for a "fireside chat" with the American people — a candid talk about big troubles and how to fix them. He was confident and strong, a father figure to a nation that was losing its way.

"My friends," said Roosevelt, freshly inaugurated, "I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking."

On Tuesday night, three quarters of a century later, Barack Obama stepped up to a less intimate but equally high-stakes version of the national fireplace to do the same thing: talk a good game, draw us a map back toward prosperity and "speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here."

Many chief executives have spoken directly with the American people since FDR's era, and an address to Congress is hardly an intimate radio talk. No president, however, has faced a context so similar. Never have the words felt so aimed at soothing Americans who are scared, broke, rousted from their homes, uncertain about the future of their lives and nation.

"He speaks to people very well," said Fred Elliott, 44, owner of a Coldwell Banker realty office in Lehigh Acres, Fla.

Facing lawmakers and Americans by the millions, Obama traded doomsaying for optimism and invoked an American chestnut — the tenacity of hope. "We will rebuild, we will recover. And the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," he said.

But do we believe him? As in Roosevelt's time, comforter-in-chief is only one hat of many. On Tuesday, though, it seemed to fit.

"He exudes a kind of self-confidence that I don't think we've had for a long time. He kind of carries you along with it," said Terry Swihart of Wakarusa, Ind., who has been laid off twice in the past year — once from a job she held for 28 years. Her husband also lost his job.

Despite her approval, Swihart added this caveat: "I hope it's not just rhetoric."

That is always the fear, particularly for a president whose eloquence was targeted in the campaign as evidence of his disingenuousness. The words Obama chose — empathizing with Americans while also addressing Congress — were the language of hope but also of tough love.

Americans, the president insisted, were ready. He addressed a nation that he insisted does not shy away from challenges — it's in our spirit — and demanded action not only from government but from the people.