So what good are Obama’s "platitudes"?

I share many concerns about Obama expressed by others here. But regarding the comments I’ve seen denigrating his speeches as grand generalities lacking substance, I disagree. If you think about it, the Declaration of Independence is almost entirely composed of general platitudes. The Gettysburg Address even more so. Certainly those are not merely policy documents with a list of particulars. Ideas that are abstract are not necessarily empty, and they may be very powerful.

Even I - a guy who goes by the name DeadElephant_ORG - can see, believe-it-or-not, there is one thing this county needs even more than it needs a new president, and that is a new engagement of its citizens to stand up and be counted for core American progressive values.

Obama’s accomplishment in Iowa of doubling the turnout and bringing in droves of new participants – mostly young people – besides being wonderful and intensely patriotic, impressively demonstrated a capability that sets him apart from all the other candidates from either side, except possibly Ron Paul. He connects with people. There is nothing about speaking at a higher level that precludes a President from acting at the level of specific policies. As a matter of fact, you can’t do the job of President any other way. Hillary may, as she expects, be “ready on day one” to manage the government, but it all comes down to whether a President can move more Americans to support our progressive agenda. Obama can.

aren't moving there are bigger problems. ANd, he hasn't moved me. If I want to hear about God I can turn on TV.

And... he does not speak down to people, like our current resident.
He wants them to participate, and be heard, and be powerful - that "enabling" is what is getting his great response.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.