I would disagree with this quite strongly. Check out any of Ronald Reagans’ speeches, including this one, which Reagan delivered at the '92 Republican convention and only a couple of years before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Notice how effectively and inspirationally he speaks, without telepromters and with only an occasional glance at his notes.
And check out this performance by William F. Buckley, Jr. at the closing of a debate on the Panama Canal treaty.
In my opinion Obama isn’t really that great an orater and certainly not the same league with these guys. His speeches all tend to sound the same, being delivered in the same tone and cadence (except when he shouts in an attempt to appear forceful), and seem more or less interchangeable with one another. I believe that you could have a selection of Obama’s speeches running in the background while you perform other chores and you would be hard pressed to know one speech from the other. I believe it’s only in comparison with Clinton and the Bushes that Obama seems as eloquent as he does.
Reagan was an actor and could deliver his lines very professionally .
Buckey was very bright and I enjoyed listening to his program on PBS. I read his column too.
Obama gives a very good speech.
Palin sucks. She makes anyone seem articulate. But the Repubs don’t have a decent orator near the top. Gingrich, McCain, Huckleberry, Santorum , none of them could be thought of a spellbinding or even interesting.
She drew a crowd of 10000 to a rally in Minnesota the other day. In 2010. Should she decide to run she’d have an instant army of conservatives/evangeligals who would run through a brick wall for her and would dwarf the mybarackobama operation in terms of organisational/size potential. A straw poll of the kind of conservatives who go to conferences doesn’t mean anything, nor does poll of GOP voters. The people Palin needs to vote for her are GOP primary voters and they’re a different animal from your average GOP voter. She could win the nomination at a canter if she decides to run. Whether the country would vote for her is another matter.
Fair enough: tastes vary. I based my claim on the way he engages with his audience’s empathy – not necessarily or even typically with the downtrodden, but rather with those that they are inclined to disagree with. As a result, Obama tends to appeal to decent centrists who can perceive his essential fair-mindedness.
Teleprompters: Sorry but this is right-wing fantasy. All Presidents have used them, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Heck right-wing orators have been observed speaking off of them during conferences while simultaneously criticizing Obama’s use of the teleprompter. Pathetic, no?
But Obama creamed the GOP this January during the extended Q&A bit, an environment that Bush II would have never permitted himself to get into. Reagan might have pulled it off though, as like most Presidents he performed adequately during press conferences.
Yeah, I said “adequately”. In the 1980s I thought he appeared as a condescending moron. My Republican friends would say, “Yeah, he’s the Great Communicator”, meaning that his ability to simplify was an asset, though it was certainly less than intellectual. Right wing apologists respond with some of his columns written in the 1970s, which I haven’t reviewed in detail. But I think the best evidence for Reagan’s shallowness comes from his official biographer, who felt forced to write a bizarre half-fiction account of the Gipper. Jeez, if that’s the very best that they can do…
At your Reagan link, I see 2 teleprompters at 00:19 - again, not that there’s anything wrong with that. If you truly believe it to be great – let’s see the transcript. Great speeches will also read well. Ah, let me jump in at 4:21:
“I hope you let me talk about a country that is forever young.”
Sorry, but that’s weak-knee shmaltz. I prefer the more bracing stuff. True, Reagan delivered that better than McCain could – perhaps he’s a cut above B. Clinton, who was also known to deliver some sappy lines at times. The difference is that Clinton also tried to convey some deeper stuff.
Sorry for the rambling. To summarize, I can’t see how I can make an air-tight case for any orator, including Lincoln. Yet I admit that I am reluctant to give up my original claim.
His 2004 convention speech compares favorably with Mario Cuomo’s 1984 convention speech. Cuomo was the best orator of his generation. Therefore…
Now admittedly, I wasn’t thinking about Reagan, who was more of a down-home folksy living room chatterer. I admit that we can’t settle this, unless I define “Best orator” more tightly, which I am not prepared to do.
My remark about the teleprompters was intended only to illustrate Reagan’s sharpness, given that his speech was made less than two years before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I’m aware that presidents use teleprompters routinely and I have no problem with that in the main.
And I couldn’t find the teleprompters. I looked at 0:19 and 1:19 and none were in evidence. Still, it wouldn’t matter much if they were there. My point was that Reagan and Buckley were gifted orators on a level considerably above Barack Obama. This isn’t to say that Obama is a bad speaker, it’s just that my opinion that he’s not a particularly exceptional or inspirational one.
Still, like you say, tastes vary, and if you find Obama’s style to be superior to anyone else’s, that’s fine. But I don’t think it’s accurate to conclude that he’s the greatest orator of the past three generations. In fact, if we want to go back that far, I’d throw JFK in there as superior to Obama too, just to show that I’m not biased solely toward conservative oraters.
It’s difficult: as a matter of expression, I don’t know of a SDMB-worthy way to characterize and compare oratory. Perhaps some majors in rhetoric might know.
Teleprompter: look at 00:19/36:40 (19 seconds in) again. On the right are a bunch of people sitting down. On the left is Reagan. Check out those 2 transparent thingies on both sides of him. Those are teleprompters: they’re pretty neat actually. On sharpness: I understand that delivering a speech from a teleprompter isn’t all that easy. It’s a skill. Reagan certainly had an actor’s poise in front of the camera, even after disease had started to take its toll.
Keep the faith, bro!
I rooted for Huckabee last year, but I could get behind a Palin run come 2012. For one thing she’s not Romney, for another she’s probably less crazy than Ron Paul.
Of course, I’ll be voting for Obama in the General.
Hmm, interesting. I didn’t know those were teleprompters. Guess I can’t make that claim anymore. Thanks.
With regard to judging oratory, I suppose it is hard to say. I would be inclined to judge it based on it’s ability to resonate with or elicit an emotional response from its audience, or by its ability to persuade people to a belief or point of view they hadn’t had before. Reagan was great at pumping people up and inspiring them to be more confident and more positive about the future and the U.S. itself. And his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech resonated wildly throughout the free world and I believe it played a significant role in the ultimate demise of the wall itself. Reagan was also great during times of sorrow such as the Challenger disaster. I can’t imagine any president before or since who could have pulled off such a moving speech and make it sound sincere. To this day I almost tear up whenever I think of Reagan’s voice speaking about the Challenger crew and their having “slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God”.
Kennedy was an effective motivational speaker too. He had people all over the country taking 50 mile walks and others joining the Peace Corps in record numbers. And of course his inaugural speech, which contained the immortal line, “Ask not what your country can do for you…”, has become one for the history books.
To me these are the qualities that make someone a great orator. If a person has the ability to inspire people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do, or to genuinely touch them in times of grief, or move them to adopt beliefs they wouldn’t otherwise have, then to me that person qualifies as a great orator.
Oh, Mao. :smack: I apologize for not being able to parse your uncapitalized jumbled scrawl.
It sounds more like Simon Doonan is a Marxist. Or maybe just trying to be provocative. I tend to look at Obama’s actual economic policies where, y’know, any Marxism ought to be manifesting itself, rather than his Christmas decorations (although Marxists are very big on the whole Christmas thing).
That’s wonderful. I may take that as my sig line. However, if you do not understand that fascism and Marxism are not only two different things but historically have often been antithetical, I’m not the one fabricating history.
Well, if a random blogger on the internet disagrees with generations of political thinkers and historians, clearly the blogger must be right. Although you know what that article needed? A few more repetitions of the phrase “Nazis were Marxists”. Because that would have made for a much more compelling argument.
I count 23 more posts which did not address the OP after Bryan’s attempt quoted above.
True, it is nearly impossible to predict politics a week from now because the variables in that calculation number about 6.5 billion plus (the population of the world)
Not true, The coming Palin administration after her inauguration can be predicted by looking at at the candidates platform. Obama is implementing his written platform not so much his verbally articulated platform. And likewise one could use the McCain-Palin platform adjusted for Palin’s unique viewpoint.
Except for the part where the mess we’re currently in didn’t have anything to do with Obama, or the legislation you claimed would bankrupt 66 million households, or… well, anything you said, really.
I predicted in 1997 that the US would fight two wars. And look, it’s happening right now! Kneel before me, foolish mortal!
Are you sure you’re a Palin fan? A resolution declaring Earned Income Tax Credit Day? A resolution honoring the Salvation Army?
Oh, you’re kidding. Or perhaps you’re just unaware that “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 by that noted Founding Father Eisenhower.
Okay, you are kidding.
Ah, and a little cognitive dissonance to round things out:
Take a look at what Obama did just today - He hosted a nuclear security summit of nearly 50 countries, got a pledge from Ukraine to give up it’s enriched uranium, had constructive talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao regarding increasing sanctions on Iran, and also raised concerns over China’s monetary policy.
Indeed I did. It looks pretty much like standard Republican boilerplate with a few platitudes thrown in.
She’s pro-life and wants to turn control of the issue back to the states, but says nothing specific about why Roe steps on states rights and, say, a Federal ban on gay marriage does not. In fact, she doesn’t say anything specific about Roe.
She likes free-market capitalism. Well, who doesn’t? I know a lot her supporters like to label opponents as free-market haters, but that doesn’t make it so.
She doesn’t support gay marriage. Well, that’s her right and the right of anyone. But how does this translate into action if she becomes President? Will she sign federal legislation to block or overturn the efforts of individual states to legalize gay marriage?
a) Parents have choices on how and where the school their children. I wasn’t aware such choices were in trouble in America, but I admit I’m not a parent.
b) Preserve hetero marriage. See (3).
c) Cracking down on gangs, drugs and “attacks” on the 2nd Amendment. Well, the first two are fairly standard “tough on crime” platitudes, but I’m not sure how that last item gets in there, nor how it’s a family-specific issue. What’s an “attack” on the 2nd Amendment? A government official confiscating a citizen’s guns, or a citizen saying the 2nd should be altered or repealed? I get the sneaking suspicion it’s the latter, and I’m curious what form her crackdown will take.
Cutting taxes on business - another Republican standard, though it’s a bit divorced from the reality of the significant deficit she’s likely to inherit. I’m not sure being the mayor of Wasilla, booming though it may be, offers up a whole lot of that executive experience she frequently touts.
She’s anti-abortion, pro-creationism and pro-resource-exploitation. That’s all well and good, but as President, does this mean she’ll push for federal abortion laws (intruding on state’s rights) and federally-mandated intelligent-design classes (intruding on parental choices)? Personally, I like exploiting resources, too.
The phrase “under God” wasn’t in the Pledge during the days of the Founding Fathers. In fact, the pledge itself was written in 1892 and the “under God” part not added until 1954. Is it a good thing to have a candidate who simply recites without checking facts?
Anyway, the rest of it is pretty much a repetition of the above. The gist I’m getting is that she’ll let the states decide if they agree with her, not let them if they don’t, and whatever she is, her supporters can at least be glad she’s not Obama.
