Obama war
speech draws 29.2 million
Second-lowest audience for a speech by the president
By Toni Fitzgerald
Sep 2, 2010
It's perhaps a measure of just how far down the list of priorities the Iraq War has become that when President Barack Obama addressed the subject in a Tuesday night speech, he drew the second-smallest crowd yet for one of his chats.
In his second Oval Office address, airing from 8 to 8:20 p.m. on 11 networks, the president attracted 29.2 million total viewers.
That was down 9 percent from his most recent speech in June, addressing the Gulf oil spill, which drew 32.1 million.
And it was 28 percent less than the 40.8 million who watched his address on the war in Afghanistan in December of last year, and that aired on 10 networks, one less than Tuesday's address.
ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, CNN, CNBC, CNTRC, Fox News Channel and MSNBC all carried the speech live.
But it was slightly more than tuned in to a 100 days in office press conference Obama had last year, which drew just under 29 million.
Two years ago, when Obama was running for president, the Iraq War was high on voters' list of concerns. But a long recession, combined with doubts over whether the economy is now recovering, have shoved both the wars well down the list of concerns heading into the midterm elections.
The purpose of Tuesday's relatively brief speech was to declare the American combat mission in Iraq finished. Combat troops pulled out a couple weeks ago, though the country has been rocked by violence this month.
Of course, Obama probably would have drawn fewer viewers anyway because of the timing of the speech. Households using television levels are quite low at the end of August.
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