"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver." Proverbs 25:11Words Fitly Spoken: Part I She Said He SaidOn a July evening in 2004, this Republican was watching the Democratic Convention when a young legislator from Illinois delivered the keynote address. I did not know his name, but after months of listening to John Kerry's haughty air, I turned to my wife and said, "Now here's a Democrat who's going to be President someday." It wasn't that I agreed with everything he was saying, but I was very impressed with his ability to say it.Four months later Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator, and four years later we all know his name. I still disagree with him on some very important issues, but I agree with the way he disagrees with me. His disarming tone is a force all its own. He's like Reagan in that regard, but his words soar above those of "the great communicator." He has MLK's gift of rhetorical rhythms and themes.I don't mean for this reality check to dash Hillary's loyal entourage or McCain's reluctant mutineers or Huckabee's faithful few. This is not an endorsement; nor is it a prediction; it's simply a "hat tip" to one of the best public orators since... well, since the men he was falsely accused of plagiarizing this past week.This past week Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton engaged not in a war of words but in a war about words--about their value compared to actions, their power to persuade, and their source when borrowed. Evidently Hillary knew she was no match for Obama as a public speaker so she began belittling the importance of "good speeches" a few weeks ago. To counter that attack, Barack added a short string of famous political quotations followed by "Just words?" He barrowed the device from a his friend, Deval Patrick, who used very similar lines two years ago. See the comparison here. But keep in mind the lines themselves were iconic quotations, literary allusions if you will.So it seemed petty indeed when during Thursday night's debate Hillary accused Obama of stealing that part of his speech. Obama was speechless--no pun intended--but he eventually muttered, "The notion that I had plagiarized from someone who is one of my national co-chairs. This is where we start getting into silly season in politics"Hillary had this rehearsed line up her sleeve (we'll assume she wrote it herself): "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in. It's change you can Xerox."Here's why I say it's petty: One of the lines Obama "lifted" from Deval Patrick's speech was the quotation attributed to JFK, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." BUT WAIT, perhaps Hillary should also debunk Kennedy for "lifting" those words from Khalil Gibran who said in his 1925 published work, "The New Frontier" (36 years before Kennedy's Inaugural), "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert." BUT WAIT... maybe she should also question Gibran's originality since Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a Memorial Day address is 1884 stated: "It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to ... recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return."See what I mean? In the world of politics, a quotation often gets attributed to the person who said it best not first.By the end of the Thursday's debate, Hillary was temporarily in a much better mood, as you can see in the first part of this youtube clip. Then two days later in Ohio (Saturday) she was mad again and pretended to challenge Obama to a "bring it on" debate that we all know has been scheduled for weeks.I'll post the second part of this post Wednesday (after Tuesday's debate). In the meantime, if you haven't seen the following two videos, they will underscore what I'm saying about Obama's disarming gift with words fitly spoken.The first is his Yes We Can speech delivered in New Hampshire. The second is the Yes We Can music video that was presumably conceived of after the words were uttered.Now do you see what Obama means when he insists that there is a difference between momentum in a race an A MOMENT in history. This is not an endorsement. It is a study in extremely effective rhetoric that Hillary will find hard to top and stop. Sore words cannot trump words that soar. Likewise, McCain (no matter how many "my friends" he inserts into his speeches) will have difficulty overcoming the face-to-face charisma of this young senator with the name that sounds more American with each passing day.Source
Monday, February 25, 2008
Words Fitly Spoken: Part I
I confess. I'm a recovering political junky. It all started when I met Ronald and Nancy Reagan in 1979. Secret Service would not let Governor Reagan sign autographs but Nancy was kind enough to scrawl her name on my clipboard as we shared an umbrella. Ever since, I've been fascinated by politics, and gotten handshakes, photos, and autographs from all three Republican Presidents. But I have deliberately steered clear of the topic this primary season. (Okay. Okay... I did write one tongue-in-cheek movie review last November, and yes it was a thinly veiled op-ed on Hillary. Sorry if that was too harsh. But other than that essay, I've held off until now.)One of the reasons I enjoy reading comments at POI is that they come from a diverse gathering of "friends on the porch." There are friends who don't share my views but they don't mind my vision. There are those who don't share my faith, but they don't mind knowing I'm a follower of Christ. (By the way, my header mentions that as reminder to myself not an earned merit badge. I haven't arrived, I'm just trying to follow.) We come from across the continent and beyond—Canadian, American, white, black, Hispanic, Malaysian, Thai, etc. Old friends. New friends. People I see every week, and people I will never meet in this life. That's what I love about blogging..I'm saying this because politics can set people's teeth on edge, and I don't want to do that. Maybe it will help if I say up front that this 2-post series is not about issues. Not that issues aren't important—they are—but issues will always be with us. This primary season, however, has already officered something that comes along perhaps once in a generation. If I were teaching a "public speaking" class again, my students and I would be immersed in this discussion. I hope you find it equally interesting."A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver." Proverbs 25:11Words Fitly Spoken: Part I She Said He SaidOn a July evening in 2004, this Republican was watching the Democratic Convention when a young legislator from Illinois delivered the keynote address. I did not know his name, but after months of listening to John Kerry's haughty air, I turned to my wife and said, "Now here's a Democrat who's going to be President someday." It wasn't that I agreed with everything he was saying, but I was very impressed with his ability to say it.Four months later Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator, and four years later we all know his name. I still disagree with him on some very important issues, but I agree with the way he disagrees with me. His disarming tone is a force all its own. He's like Reagan in that regard, but his words soar above those of "the great communicator." He has MLK's gift of rhetorical rhythms and themes.I don't mean for this reality check to dash Hillary's loyal entourage or McCain's reluctant mutineers or Huckabee's faithful few. This is not an endorsement; nor is it a prediction; it's simply a "hat tip" to one of the best public orators since... well, since the men he was falsely accused of plagiarizing this past week.This past week Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton engaged not in a war of words but in a war about words--about their value compared to actions, their power to persuade, and their source when borrowed. Evidently Hillary knew she was no match for Obama as a public speaker so she began belittling the importance of "good speeches" a few weeks ago. To counter that attack, Barack added a short string of famous political quotations followed by "Just words?" He barrowed the device from a his friend, Deval Patrick, who used very similar lines two years ago. See the comparison here. But keep in mind the lines themselves were iconic quotations, literary allusions if you will.So it seemed petty indeed when during Thursday night's debate Hillary accused Obama of stealing that part of his speech. Obama was speechless--no pun intended--but he eventually muttered, "The notion that I had plagiarized from someone who is one of my national co-chairs. This is where we start getting into silly season in politics"Hillary had this rehearsed line up her sleeve (we'll assume she wrote it herself): "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in. It's change you can Xerox."Here's why I say it's petty: One of the lines Obama "lifted" from Deval Patrick's speech was the quotation attributed to JFK, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." BUT WAIT, perhaps Hillary should also debunk Kennedy for "lifting" those words from Khalil Gibran who said in his 1925 published work, "The New Frontier" (36 years before Kennedy's Inaugural), "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert." BUT WAIT... maybe she should also question Gibran's originality since Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a Memorial Day address is 1884 stated: "It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to ... recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return."See what I mean? In the world of politics, a quotation often gets attributed to the person who said it best not first.By the end of the Thursday's debate, Hillary was temporarily in a much better mood, as you can see in the first part of this youtube clip. Then two days later in Ohio (Saturday) she was mad again and pretended to challenge Obama to a "bring it on" debate that we all know has been scheduled for weeks.I'll post the second part of this post Wednesday (after Tuesday's debate). In the meantime, if you haven't seen the following two videos, they will underscore what I'm saying about Obama's disarming gift with words fitly spoken.The first is his Yes We Can speech delivered in New Hampshire. The second is the Yes We Can music video that was presumably conceived of after the words were uttered.Now do you see what Obama means when he insists that there is a difference between momentum in a race an A MOMENT in history. This is not an endorsement. It is a study in extremely effective rhetoric that Hillary will find hard to top and stop. Sore words cannot trump words that soar. Likewise, McCain (no matter how many "my friends" he inserts into his speeches) will have difficulty overcoming the face-to-face charisma of this young senator with the name that sounds more American with each passing day.Source
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver." Proverbs 25:11Words Fitly Spoken: Part I She Said He SaidOn a July evening in 2004, this Republican was watching the Democratic Convention when a young legislator from Illinois delivered the keynote address. I did not know his name, but after months of listening to John Kerry's haughty air, I turned to my wife and said, "Now here's a Democrat who's going to be President someday." It wasn't that I agreed with everything he was saying, but I was very impressed with his ability to say it.Four months later Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator, and four years later we all know his name. I still disagree with him on some very important issues, but I agree with the way he disagrees with me. His disarming tone is a force all its own. He's like Reagan in that regard, but his words soar above those of "the great communicator." He has MLK's gift of rhetorical rhythms and themes.I don't mean for this reality check to dash Hillary's loyal entourage or McCain's reluctant mutineers or Huckabee's faithful few. This is not an endorsement; nor is it a prediction; it's simply a "hat tip" to one of the best public orators since... well, since the men he was falsely accused of plagiarizing this past week.This past week Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton engaged not in a war of words but in a war about words--about their value compared to actions, their power to persuade, and their source when borrowed. Evidently Hillary knew she was no match for Obama as a public speaker so she began belittling the importance of "good speeches" a few weeks ago. To counter that attack, Barack added a short string of famous political quotations followed by "Just words?" He barrowed the device from a his friend, Deval Patrick, who used very similar lines two years ago. See the comparison here. But keep in mind the lines themselves were iconic quotations, literary allusions if you will.So it seemed petty indeed when during Thursday night's debate Hillary accused Obama of stealing that part of his speech. Obama was speechless--no pun intended--but he eventually muttered, "The notion that I had plagiarized from someone who is one of my national co-chairs. This is where we start getting into silly season in politics"Hillary had this rehearsed line up her sleeve (we'll assume she wrote it herself): "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in. It's change you can Xerox."Here's why I say it's petty: One of the lines Obama "lifted" from Deval Patrick's speech was the quotation attributed to JFK, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." BUT WAIT, perhaps Hillary should also debunk Kennedy for "lifting" those words from Khalil Gibran who said in his 1925 published work, "The New Frontier" (36 years before Kennedy's Inaugural), "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert." BUT WAIT... maybe she should also question Gibran's originality since Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a Memorial Day address is 1884 stated: "It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to ... recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return."See what I mean? In the world of politics, a quotation often gets attributed to the person who said it best not first.By the end of the Thursday's debate, Hillary was temporarily in a much better mood, as you can see in the first part of this youtube clip. Then two days later in Ohio (Saturday) she was mad again and pretended to challenge Obama to a "bring it on" debate that we all know has been scheduled for weeks.I'll post the second part of this post Wednesday (after Tuesday's debate). In the meantime, if you haven't seen the following two videos, they will underscore what I'm saying about Obama's disarming gift with words fitly spoken.The first is his Yes We Can speech delivered in New Hampshire. The second is the Yes We Can music video that was presumably conceived of after the words were uttered.Now do you see what Obama means when he insists that there is a difference between momentum in a race an A MOMENT in history. This is not an endorsement. It is a study in extremely effective rhetoric that Hillary will find hard to top and stop. Sore words cannot trump words that soar. Likewise, McCain (no matter how many "my friends" he inserts into his speeches) will have difficulty overcoming the face-to-face charisma of this young senator with the name that sounds more American with each passing day.Source
