A fist-pounding, openly-emotional speech is a fine thing, when there is a target. Pearl Harbor isn’t very applicable–we had a target then, it was very obvious, it didn’t take concerted intelligence work to figure it out. We had a target, and the war we would engage in was of the traditional model. It’s not as if Japan was in hiding and mobile.
I think attitudes about this might break down along personality lines–I’m good at poker faces, dark inner brooding, and all that rot. I can remember times when I was utterly calm, distant, and unemotional on the outside, and absolutely raging within, so perhaps I’m projecting in my not having a problem with it.
As someone who spent 4 years on his High School Speech & Debate team – 3 of them as captain – and has on several occasions judged speech competitions, I feel reasonably qualified in my opinion that (1) Bush’s speech writers are mediocre and that (2) his delivery is embarrassing.
In this instance, I’ll grant that there was a hurdle: Bush really had nothing of import to say (no news, no plans; nothing he said was new or surprising in the least, with the possible exception of the statement directed at countries who could be harboring the terrorists). All that means, however, is that the speech doesn’t have substance on which to fall back. The rhetoric can still be (and should have been) excellent. Given an hour with which to prepare, I probably could have written a better speech. Given, say, three hours, I absolutely could have written a better speech . . . and among the elements of public speaking, rhetoric isn’t even my forte. This isn’t to say I could have written a great speech – merely that Bush’s speech was, well, weak.
That’s how you write a speech. Coincidentally, that’s also an apt sentiment given the situation.
Bush should have brought a speech coach with him during his vacation and spent at least 2 hours a day with him. Some of his problems:
– He stuttered
– He slurred or otherwise mispronounced his words
– He spoke too slowly, giving the impression that he was struggling to read the teleprompter quickly enough (which, I’m sad to say, is conceivable)
– His facial expressions seemed forced and overly rehearsed
– His hand gestures were wretched. Absolutely awful. In the first place, it’s difficult to make effective hand gestures while sitting, so he probably should have steered clear given his limited rhetorical capacity. That said, it’s hardly impossible. His hand gestures consisted almost entirely of his taking his folded hands apart very slightly, and then immediately returning them to a folded position. This means that he simply didn’t know what to do with his hands . . . which gives the impression (at least subconsciously) that he doesn’t know what to do with himself, the country, this crisis, etc. This further gives the impression that he, like his hand gestures, is completely ineffectual. It looked like he would decide to make a hand gesture, beging to do so, then quickly change his mind. If one is going to use hand gestures, they must be decisive. (Sorry for harping on this last point, but I had it driven into me with a vengeance, out of necessity).
If you put President Bush into a room with a judge and 5 high school S&D kids giving the same exact speech, Bush would be lucky to rank above even one of them.
Finally, I would like to point out that this post is in no way intended as a smear of President Bush except as regards his speaking abilities.
Forgive me if I’m not impressed by your “credentials”. There’s a difference between “Debate the pros and cons of smoking” and addressing the nation - nay, the world - as the President.
“I was a member of the High School physics team, so I’m reasonably qualified to build a nuclear bomb.” :rolleyes:
SPOOFE,
Perhaps there is some misunderstanding. I don’t mean to frame my critique as being unassailable because of my experience; I’m just trying to point out that I have a pretty good idea of what kind and amount of preparation results in a given level of competency when speaking publicly, and that I’ve heard and/or read (to say nothing of written) countless speeches, therefore I have a pretty solid frame of reference from which to criticise Bush’s speechwriters. You can paint it as being trifling if you want but, for four years, I spent a couple of hours every day (every school day, at least) learning how to write and deliver speeches. Now that I think of it, in fact, what kind of “credentials” would impress you (other than “Professional Speech Writer”)? I don’t believe my school has a Rhetoric Department.
I’ll make it very clear: I’m not qualified to write or deliver an address to the nation such as President Bush made last night. That doesn’t mean I’m not qualified to point out that neither, apparently, is President Bush. To use your analogy, even an amateur would be justified in a critique of someone who makes a nuclear bomb but forgets to include, for example, the plutonium.
I thought the speech was incredibly weak and offered no reassurance that he was ready to rise to the occassion. I got the sense that he was too shattered to risk writing anything a ten year old could not have handled.
An unknowng group of people has eluded our security measures to hijack four passenger planes, and use them as guided (and manned) missiles. They destroyed the World Trade Center, and seriously damaged the Pentagon. The center of Americas economic and military might has been attacked, and dealt a serious blow. The general safety of the average American citizen has been called into question. The President now has to worry about the death toll, our security measures, the effect in this time of (relative) economic weakness, his own safety and the safety of his family, foreign policy, an investigation to find out who it was who attacked us, and our inevitable response. The guy probably didn’t have time to take a piss all day.
And you’re disappointed in his hand gestures, Mr. Captain of the High School Debate Team?
You’re “uninspired”, sven?
You didn’t see any emotion, Atreyu?
I saw a man who is responsible for making 320 million people feel secure again. Who must assuage our anger, yet not overreact. Who must deal with $20 billion in damages and a still-untold number of casualties.
But you didn’t like the way he paused in the middle of his sentence.
Since he couldn’t have said anything of “substance” because we don’t have a confirmed target, why couldn’t he just talk to us? Forget the teleprompter, don’t worry about mangled grammar, just talk to us. We needed that Tuesday, and still do.
I’m grateful he didn’t use any “day which will live in infamy” language, that would have come across as an overt attempt to be historical.
Someone who I think has done really well is Giuliani. No hyperbole, no false emotion, no politicizing. He’s even been upbeat (but cautious) when talking about the recovery efforts.
Yes. In the first place, the point of this thread is Bush’s speech. I didn’t like it, but perhaps you did. No matter – it’s very subjective. Nevertheless, he’s had more than enough time to become a decent speaker, and his speech writers had more than enough time to write a decent speech. Neither happened, in my opinion.
Yes, but did you see him succeed? It is absolutely his responsibility to instill confidence right now, yet I (and millions of others) have very little faith in his ability to lead. In large measure, this is because he does not speak well and he does not express himself clearly. When reading prepared remarks, all of my criticisms above apply. He seems very unsure of himself. When speaking without a script, he shows a distinct lack of ability (relative to other politicians, at least) to think on his feet or even to use proper grammar consistently. At times like this, such things are important.
Ned wrote:
I know lots of people who feel this way, and that’s not good. Yes, I am concerned about Bush’s hand gestures. Apparently, I’m the only one. Bush’s handlers should have fixed this years ago.
Judging by his speech on Tuesday, I think President Bush is flustered. I can sympathize completely, but it’s his job to keep a cool head. I would prefer that he not be in charge right now.
Max Harvey:
It certainly would have been interesting had he done it extemporaneously, but it also would have been dangerous (see above). That said, without a landmark speech (and they should have realized that they didn’t have one), I would have preferred that he try to simply express himself honestly, with no script. But that’s me.
I agree. I’m not a Giuliani supporter, but I have a lot of faith in his ability to handle this (inasmuch* as he has authority to handle it). He sounds like he’s in charge. He sounds sad but determined. He sounds worried but rational. He sounds intelligent.
After being told yesterday that Air Force One was an original target of the terrorists, I think I just came to terms with Bush’s delivery of his speech from the White House.
He’s not a robot by any means. That “robot-like” quality his voice assumed was most probably an “Oh my God, I’ve just been the target of a planned assasination” look.
He’s a crappy speaker - we all know it. I think it goes back to when everyone criticized his pronunciation, and he is trying to compensate and be overly careful.
However, Mayor Daley is also a crappy speaker. Most of the time though, you get the feeling that he is committed to whatever he is talking about, which you don’t get from George Bush.
But, that’s just a quibble - if he gets something done, we won’t hold that against him. It didn’t lead to a lot of confidence building, though.
Could the speech have been better? Yes, as it could have been worse. In light of the entire situation, the fact that people are attempting to gauge the level of a countries leadership based on the leader’s level of articulation or how he moved his hands during an extremely difficult speech, I find not only sad, but disturbing. Personally I’m more concerned with actions and decisions being made by the government than eloquence of words, while understanding that I am not in a position to know exactly what is happening due to security. During a time such as this, I personally feel a sense of duty to support the government and it’s leaders as much as possible, regardless of whether or not I voted for them or my opinion of their politics or agendas, if they are religious or not or who they are screwing in the broom closet.
Perhaps I’m just funny in the way that I find Monday Morning Quarterbacking by unqualified people to be rather infuriating. If I were to have such a simple mind to think that I could judge a current leader’s qualification based on such simple things with what is happening, I would look back on his initial reaction and bearing upon being informed of the tragedy while in the school and think “Now there’s confidence… there’s bearing… there’s a man who isn’t going to panic throughout this thing”. Then again, looking back on that, I might find that he was gripping the book a bit too tightly, thus showing a lack of leadership and making me believe that he will crumble.
I don’t have to rely on my leaders to give me confidence. I already have confidence that action will be taken, and everything that can be done, is being done, to the highest levels possible. Why? Because of faith. This country has always stood tall during crisis, the people have always come together when needed, and the government has always accomplished the truly important things when required. I know that the wheels are turning and do not require it to be spelled out for me. I know that the government is running on high octane right now, in the right directions, without requiring someone at a podium to remove my preconceived doubts. I don’t care if there’s someone out there that could have given a better speech for the history books. I only care that the government accomplishes it’s tasks. If the government fails, then I will criticize it. But at this point, it and our elected officials have my full support and confidence, whether or not they can impress me with a fucking speech, because I know that it doesn’t take a great talker to be great leader, something that has been proven throughout history.
But if speech delivery is what you find to be truly defining in a leader, then that’s what you find important. If words are what is required to build your confidence right now, I guess you just have less faith in our government than I do, and already know in your heart that it will fail and are waiting to be proven wrong. Personally, I’ll go for the opposite.
While his speech was well worded, which I think can be attributed to his writers, did you think his movements during the speech were reminiscent of a badly controlled marionette?
Bush was on TV this morning talking with Giuliani on the phone, afterwards he held a press conference (anyone else see this?). He was not in good verbal form, even for him, but given the circumstances it’s at least understandable.
No, the really unsettling thing was, he was visibly welling up with tears at the end of the press conference, and walked off looking quite shaken (In fact it appeared maybe he cut the press conference short due to his emotional state).
I don’t know, at this time I expect the President to express his deep sorrow and grief, but crying? I mean if ever there was a time we needed the President to sack up and show some resolve. I’ve been thinking about this all morning, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt (admittedly I’m not at all a Bush supporter). But that was scary.
I don’t know about his evening speech, but I think back to his Louisiana speech. It was very halting… look at paper, read line, look at camera, say line, repeat.
Then, later, Tom Brokaw was quoting the speech. “Freedom has been attacked and Freedom will be defended.”
I thought, “Wow, it sounded so much better coming out of Tom Brokaw.”
Disclaimer: The lecture I tried to give on Wednesday for my class was a piece of crap, and I had over 24 hours to recover. I would have liked more confidence and authority in his voice, but I can cut him some slack on it.
Can we talk content for a second here? I mean that is the point of the speech, not just to show everyone what a great public speaker he is.
I didn’t think the content was so great. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think we were targetted because we love freedom. That statement was an insult to my intelligence.
Oh, good, it’s not just me. While I certainly didn’t expect a precise recap of the middle eastern fracas, I would have preferred some acknowledgement that a possible reason we were attacked was because some nuts disagreed with our foreign policy. Sugarcoating that down to “We were attacked because we are the Good People™ and the Meanies™ didn’t like us” was definitely overdoing it.
CNN just showed Clinton back in New York from Australia. Damn he’s good in amongst the people. Regardless of your opinion of him as a person or a president, you have to be impressed with his ability to relate to people, be it BS or not. Before he came on I was going to say that what Bush needs to do is something like one of those “town hall” meetings with the electorate, answering people’s questions when he is able to, but speaking without prepared material. He needs to get out amongst us, regardless of what the Secret Service might think about potential threats. If I were to go to that, I’d willingly submit to a strip-search.
That said, when the inevitable military action takes place, I assume he’ll make a speech before both houses and the country to bring us up to speed. At that time I think he needs to have the living (and able) presidents to stand behind him, unified. At a speech such as that, his delivery will not be all important, but the message will be king.
And for people who criticize VarlosZ, you need to understand how important it is for our leader to communicate effectively. I said earlier that I thought Bush was the worst communicator as president in our modern age, and I do stand by that. Reagan would not have been what he was if he couldn’t speak well. Clinton would not have been one of the most popular presidents (while it lasted) if he wasn’t an effective communicator. I think one of the problems with the last election is that both Bush and Gore (who would have taken Bush’s place as worst communicator had he won) had difficulty in presenting themselves to the voters in the ways they would have wanted. Gerald Ford could probably have defeated Carter in '76 had he not been something of a verbal stumble-bum. Nixon’s “silent majority” speech let the Viet Nam war go on longer than it would have had he not been able so speak well. Do not discount the power a good speaker has. You need look no further than Hitler. Or Churchill. With the last two, you can see that during wartime it is even more so. Sometimes issues alone are not enough, and Bush is going to need effective words and speech if this is going to be a years-long matter, because we Americans can, unfortunately, lose focus. …Anyways, VarlosZ has valid points, even if you find his critique unpalatable at this time.
Ah, you’d like to believe that. But in a great many peoples’ minds, content’s not nearly as important as what Dennis Miller once ranted about as, “the great American crime: not looking good on television.”
It’s not a speech that will go into history books. It won’t ever be studied in rhetoric classes alongside the greats.
I agree. Warmongering content comes so better from the news. But then for anyone to not know that they would have to had their TV off for the past two days.