Nick Morgan, Public Words

John McCain's Hand

You take your eyes off the political scene and go on vacation and what happens?  John McCain's hand becomes news -- a gift to those who study non-verbal communications, and a lesson in the limits of body language 'reading'. 

What was the fuss about?  McCain was asked an embarrassing question about why many health insurance policies cover Viagra and not contraceptives.  He hesitated for 8 seconds before giving a fumbling answer.  While he was hesitating, his hand shot up to his mouth and covered it.

What did the hand signify?  Not, as the commentary has suggested, that he was trying to keep himself from lying.  Children do that, not adults, and especially not adults as comfortable with evasion as seasoned politicians.  And that's the wrong way to think about hand gestures.  They usually don't convey specific meanings like that; rather, they spring from emotion. 

What happened in that moment was that John McCain had a strong emotional reaction to the question.  We put our hands to our faces when we are thinking, and to cover our mouths when we're shocked or appalled.  John was shocked or appalled by the question, and then he started thinking.  The whole process took 8 seconds, which suggests he was quite flummoxed. 

Why was he appalled?  That's where it gets interesting, and body language along can't tell us.  We need to know something about the man.  Was he appalled because he's a prude?  Unlikely; he's a former Marine.  Was he shocked because he was afraid his use of Viagra was going to become news?  Possible, but that's sheer speculation.  Was he appalled because it was a 'gotcha' question and there was no good answer immediately in sight?  Most likely. 

All body language can tell us is that McCain had an emotional reaction strong enough to last 8 seconds.  That's significant, because 6 seconds is the average length of time people in conversation or discussion will let a silence lapse (try it yourself).  That means that his emotions were stronger than average.  Or perhaps that he was just tired and slow on the draw.  It's a great lesson in the insights and limitations of reading body language.   

Commencement Speeches

Tis the season to be wary -- of commencement speeches.  We're almost through the danger period for another year, but it doesn't pay to relax your guard too early.

I had to write a dozen (that's 12) commencement speeches -- on different topics -- over 2 summers for the Governor of Virginia when I started my career as a speechwriter 20 years ago.  That experience left me wary of the genre and easily spooked by the thought of hearing another one delivered. 

It almost goes without saying that the majority of commencement speeches are terrible -- vacuous, platitudinous, and ponderous.  And too long. 

I heard a contemporary example recently at Columbia University.  It was a proud day for me; my daughter was getting a degree.  Like so many others in the audience, I was thrilled to be there, and disposed to be charitable to all and sundry.  In fact, there was a great vibe in the crowd -- lots of joshing of neighbors and jolly comments about the day, the giant TV screens we were watching (because the crowd was so vast) and how proud we all were.

Then the President of Columbia stood up to speak.  It's always a danger sign when the head of an organization gives his/her own speech.  Ego, arrogance, stinginess -- I found myself wondering -- which was it gonna be?  Those are the only 3 reasons not to hire someone from the outside. 

I don't know about the stinginess, but ego and arrogance were certainly on display as the President droned on for far too long about far too little.  This was the guy who had brought the President of Iran to campus only to browbeat him like a naughty student in a public exchange, leading many to question his political savvy and his general acumen.  I mean, why bother if you're just going to insult the guy?  You can do that from a distance and save the air fare. 

I guess that's why the Prez went on so long about freedom of speech.  But it wasn't convincing, the prose was pompous and in love with itself, and the speech was only too typical of the sickly genre.

Contrast that one with the one J. K. Rowling delivered to the Harvard graduation.  (I didn't attend, just read it on line.)  I don't know how it sounded, but it read beautifully.  It was a moving tribute to Amnesty International and the power of the human imagination.  Timely, important, and worthy of her enormous talent.  I hope she got a standing ovation.  The good commencement speeches are rare, and deserve accolades.

So if you're going to give a commencement speech, please remember three things.  One, keep it short.  Twenty-two minutes is the absolute top, since that's the average attention span of an adult who doesn't have ADD.  Twelve minutes is better.  Two, make it about something you care about.  You're there on the dais because of who you are.  Speak from your passion.  And three, don't give advice.  Ever.  That's taking advantage of a captive audience and (usually) a beautiful day.   

The Obama-McCain Matchup

Now that the fall political line up is (semi) official, what can we expect from our two candidates, and what do they have to do to achieve their goals as public speakers?

Senator Obama's oratorical skills are already widely praised, so I won't go there.  Instead, I'll talk about ways he could improve. 

Content.  The great thing about Obama's speeches is that they are about the audience, not the candidate.  The tendency to focus on self is what did Senator Clinton in, I believe.  Obama and his speechwriter have their attention squarely focused on exactly where it belongs.  Every other word out of Clinton's mouth was 'I', always a tip-off that the speaker is narcissistic.  Obama always makes it about you, the voter, the American, the one with dreams and ambitions.

What Obama needs to do is to learn how to use the telling specific detail.  His speeches are too general, and that kind of general uplift will pall after a while if it doesn't get down to specifics.  We certainly need to feel that we are going to have an uptick in America's fortunes in the next 4 (or 8) years.  We're tired of war, the economic squeeze of the middle class, high gas prices, being trashed around the world, and so on.  We want the good news.  But Obama is going to have to tell us how at some point.

Style.  Obama does a couple of interesting things as a speaker that are not optimal.  Watch him after he delivers a line and the crowd roars its approval.  What does he do?  He listens to the audience.  That's a wonderful sign of a great speaker.  But, as he listens, he tips his head back.  The effect is to distance himself (ever so slightly) from the audience.  The result is that he doesn't close the sale as much as he could, and he risks coming across like an elitist, someone who is literally looking down his nose at the audience. 

He's best in front of big crowds.  There, he rises to the occasion.  But in front of smaller crowds, he seems not to make the effort.  He's got to learn how to captivate all sizes of audience.  The way he dominates a big audience is instructive.  It's mostly through volume.  He's like a rookie pitcher with only one pitch:  the fastball.  He's going to need a curve and a changeup to go the distance.

Now, McCain.  Once again, his rhetorical skills have been widely panned, so I won't go there.  Much.  I'll focus instead on what he does right.

McCain is at his best off the cuff with reporters, and in question-and-answer sessions in town-hall style meetings.  He's famously awful with major speeches and teleprompters.  He can't sustain interest in front of a large audience, or a small one, for that matter, when he is scripted.

The solution?  Keep him on talking points all the time.  Never give the man a script.  Give him a couple of points to cover, and let him go.  He'll go off the reservation at times, but that's preferable to the appalling performances you're going to see otherwise.   

The Candidates' Speeches Tell the Story

 Last night public speaking aficionados were treated to a wonderful set of case studies from the last 3 candidates standing -- how not to do it, why it did her in, and how to win.

First off was John McCain, who gave a bad reading of a terrible speech.  Did his speechwriters put <SMILE> on the teleprompter at the end of each paragraph?  He certainly smiled at weird and wonderful places, while delivering bad news and slams at his putative opponent, and lamely trying to distance himself from President Bush.  He adopted a patronizing tone that served the coup de grace to Senator Clinton, managing to praise her campaign and make it sound like he was putting the little woman in her place at the same time.

More substantively, he took a lot of Senator Obama's ideas and prose and tried to use them against him.  But the effect fell flat; it just didn't work to try to pin 'old ideas' on Obama, who is so transparently about something new.  And on top of that, to steal Obama's tag line as his backdrop -- I guess imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.  McCain appeared clueless, and he's desperately taking lessons from Obama in an effort to smarten up.  He needs a different approach.  This one cannot work.

Next up was Senator Clinton, and this was the saddest speech of the night.  Clinton kept her smile plastered on the entire time, but the speech was a giveaway as to why the one-time front-runner didn't win.

It was all about her.  She claimed that everyone wanted to know what she was going to do.  Well, yes, we do want to know.  But we expect her to show leadership at a tough moment, and that's exactly what she failed to do.  She had a wonderful opportunity to exit gracefully and heal the party.  Instead, she held out for a better deal.  What a sad close to a determined campaign.

Finally, Senator Obama gave a decent speech that was rendered better by being all about the audience.  He only once referred to himself, at the beginning, when he was talking about Grandma.  Nice move.  The rest of the speech was about the hopes and dreams of the audience, of America, and about...change we can believe in.  This guy knows how to do it. 

He could be even better if he used the right kind of specifics in key places in his speech, and he got personal in the right kind of ways.  Has no one else noticed that, as good as he is, his speeches are a little impersonal?  He needs to go back and read Churchill.  Still, he's by far the best speaker on the U.S. political scene at the moment.  If it comes down to speeches, my money is on Senator Obama. 

Obama's Speech on Race: Real Public Discourse at Last

I'd seen the clips from the speech -- the white grandmother story, and the denunciation of the extreme reviews of the Obama's former pastor -- but not the whole thing.  So thanks to the magic of 'the tubes', I settled in to watch Senator Obama's entire speech on race in Philadelphia a day after it took place. 

At first I was disappointed.  No fiery rhetoric, no soaring paeans to hope, just measured phrases and quiet, thoughtful words.

But as the speech progressed, I became more and more mesmerized.  Here's why.  What Senator Obama delivered in Philadelphia was the first grown-up speech on race relations I've heard since Martin Luther King, Jr. was preaching (and I was only a little kid then). 

Obama didn't pull any verbal punches.  He spoke openly of black bitterness and white resentment.  He talked about the "most segregated hour" in America, the hour on Sunday morning when blacks go to black churches and whites go to white churches.  And he explained to the whites in the audience why black churches witness a lot of shouting and indeed ranting some Sunday mornings -- and how that might seem strange to whites used to more decorous behavior in the pulpit and the pews. 

Most powerfully, he said we have a chance to work on the real problems we face in this country -- education, health care, the Iraq war, global warming -- or we can make excuses and talk again for another election cycle about how some group or other is taking jobs and opportunities from another group and what some campaign person said in an unguarded moment to some reporter. 

Senator Obama talked to the American people as if they were adults.  He showed that he is something special:  a black man who is a post-racial candidate ready to work on the real issues that America faces.  The question is, are we ready to act like adults with him?   

Why are the spouses so much more interesting than the candidates?

Michelle Obama takes to the hustings and all of us start to pay attention to the race again.  Why?  Because she's not as practised, or as scripted, as Senator Obama.  Of course, Hillary's spouse is a special case, but all too often, the spouses are more interesting than the candidates by the time the race has been going for a few months.

There are two main reasons for that.  First of all, of course, it gets old for the candidates pretty quickly.  They get no sleep, they're rushed from place to place, and they have to say the same thing over and over again.  It's a recipe for boredom.  For them and for us. 

Second, in their slightly less scripted, repetitive world, the spouses have a better chance of actually saying something that strikes us as authentic.  And authenticity is what we crave.  Senator McCain's mother is a wonderful example of someone who makes news every time she's interviewed, usually by saying something that tweaks the candidate's image of polished professionalism.  She trashed the Republican Party for not supporting her son, and she was right.  It was a sentiment that everyone could understand, regardless of political leanings.  Loyalty was repaid with betrayal.  Bad on the party. 

If authenticity is the craving of the age, how could the candidates possibly achieve more authenticity while still staying on message in speech after speech? 

By accepting that authenticity is a little messier than the fully scripted, polished candidacy, and a little more interesting.  When Barack Obama answered that he was not very well organized to the question about a fault he had, the other candidates gave the usual replies that they were "too passionate" and "impatient for change" or some such similar drivel. 

Obama took a little flak for a news cycle or two, but he survived.  We learned something real about him.  And he lodged in our minds as someone with more authenticity than either of the other two Democratic candidates on the stage at that moment.

And who's leading now?

Is Hillary fading?

It is of course too early to predict with any certainty the outcome of the fascinating Democratic contest for the presidential nominee.  But it's tempting to read something into the number of states Obama has won, and especially the latest 4-state sweep. 

The experts point to Obama's strong organization in dominating the caucuses, and of course that's important.  But since Clinton is supposed to be the experienced manager, it's interesting that Obama is outperforming her in this regard.  Where does that leave her? 

But a look at the recent appearance of both candidates in Virginia at the same venue suggests that something even more interesting is going on.

Clinton spoke first, and left the audience about where she found it.  Obama worked the crowd into a frenzy. 

Some speak of oratorical skills with dismissiveness, as if to say, well, that's only rhetoric.  But isn't a president supposed to use the bully pulpit to inspire the people to do (good) things they didn't know they could do?  Isn't a president supposed to be a leader, and doesn't that mean at least in part inspiring the people?

Hillary better improve her oratorical skills or the game may be over before she knows it. 

It's a matter of heart.  The candidate, to connect with us, the people, has to open her heart and let us see a bit of what's inside in order to trust her.  Hillary hasn't done that yet.  And as a result, she's losing. 

Body Language and the Democratic Debate

What can the non-verbal communications from Senators Obama and Clinton tell us about the debate last night? 

Overall, they performed well.  They are two consummate professionals who waited respectfully while the other was talking, said their own bits with minimal fuss, and generally played nice.  They were trying hard to get along, and mostly they did.  Their non-verbal cues suggest that Obama is a big-picture thinker, impatient with details, and Clinton is a manager who loves to get down in the weeds of policy.  Of course, their verbal messages say that too.    

But there were a few revealing moments.  When Senator Obama responded to the question about a "dream team" of the two of them as President and Veep, Senator Clinton listened hard, turning directly toward him for the first and only time that evening.  When he refused to rule out the idea of the joint ticket, saying it was premature and presumptuous, she visibly relaxed, then moved toward him very slightly as he continued to answer.

Conclusion:  the Clinton camp HAS thought about asking Obama to be the V-P, and it's still on the table.  Depending, of course, on how things go.  You heard it here first.

When the debate was finished, Obama stood up and helped Clinton with her chair.  Depending on your perspective, this was either a) a nice, gentlemanly thing to do; b) a calculated, sexist put-down; or c)an unscripted attempt to take charge. 

The only moment during the debate when Clinton showed real passion was on the immigration issue.  She decried a Republican bill to criminalize any attempt to help an illegal alien in passionate terms:  "That would have criminalized Jesus Christ and the Good Samaritan." 

Conclusion:  She's really hot about helping those less fortunate, and working through the system.  She's a true product of her church and the system.   

The State of the Union Speech is....Irrelevant

President Bush got down into the weeds of policy in the State of the Union speech last night, and the Republicans applauded most of his initiatives, but it cost them nothing aside from a little physical exertion.  They know, as do the Democrats, that virtually everything the President proposed is DOA. 

The result was a largely irrelevant speech with no new ideas in it and few surprises.  This is a tired president, one that knows that his time is almost done. 

It's odd, because with the pressure of re-election off, President Bush might have made larger claims or pointed the way forward with more vigor.  If ever there was a time for a SOTU speech without a laundry list, this was it.

And yet we had another laundry list.  I'm assuming that the pressure was simply too great from Cabinet officials and other interested parties to have their favorite projects included. 

The most ironical moment of the night came when the President chided Congress for earmark spending and resolved to cut hither and yon in order to save a few tens of billions of dollars.  This from a President who is spending $12 billion a week on the disastrous Iraq war.

But the funniest moment of the night came thanks to Speaker Pelosi, who amused herself and no doubt countless viewers by making odd faces and doing strange things with her lips behind the President's back. 

It was near the beginning of the speech.  Check it out.  What was she thinking?

Ronald Reagan's Famous Question, Updated

Terminal timidity seems to have overcome the Democrats, and gloom the Republicans.  But both parties, preceeded by the chattering nabobs, are finally getting to the point of the election:  Just like 1992, it's the economy, stupid. 

Why?  Not this instant recession, though that may yet burgeon into something nasty.  The real reason, which we middle-classers have known all along, has escaped the elite in DC and the media until recently.  And that is that the cost of living and the cost of perceived necessities have gone steadily up during the Bush years, while wages and salaries have flattened or declined.  We live now with iPods and flat screen TVs and HD-DVDs, but it's busted us to afford all those toys.  And oh yeah, the cost of gas and food and energy and you name it keeps creeping up. 

We're squeezed, and we're not happy campers. 

So the question the Democrats need to have the courage to ask, and the one that the Republicans are afraid of confronting, is Reagan's from three decades ago, which he asked of voters who were struggling under rampant inflation and Jimmy Carter:  Are you better off than you were 4 years ago? 

Are you better off than you were 7+ years ago when President Bush took office? 

Of course not.  And here's the thing.  The President and his lieutenants distracted us with fear.  They even eked out a win in '04 because of fear.  They persuaded us that Osama was more important to worry about than our livelihoods. 

Now, it's 7 years later, no more planes, and we're waking up.  And we're realizing that the rich got a whole lot richer while we were watching the threat levels on CNN, thanks to tax cuts and corporate pork and sweetheart deals.  And we got poorer.

Are you better off?  Not likely.  Time for a change.  A real change.   

Why speak?

I was so depressed after watching John McCain read his victory speech badly -- very badly -- in New Hampshire that I briefly entertained the idea of starting a campaign to muzzle the candidates.  Of course, we'd have problems with that pesky free speech thing, but consider the advantages.  No more endless mentions of 9/11 from Guiliani.  No more shifty-eyed evasions from Romney.  No more resume-reciting from Richardson.  (Oh, right; he's gone.)  And so on. 

But then I pulled up my socks and remembered why it's still important for candidates to speak, even when they do it badly, and for us to listen. 

Speeches are still the best way for us to measure the candidates.  Why?  Remember when you gave a speech and you felt exposed in front of all those pairs of eyes?  Well, you were exposed, and that's the point.  Speechmaking exposes the candidates to their audiences.  It's a little less effective when we watch the speech on TV, but it still works. 

It doesn't matter that someone else writes the speeches -- the point is the delivery.  Watch a candidate's speech for the content, but also watch it intuitively.  Trust your gut feel for the person.  We are all unconscious experts, more or less, in reading body language, and your gut will tell you about that person's credibility and connection with the things he or she is saying.  Do they seem 'for real'?  Do the moments of verbal passion match the non-verbal?  Does the speaker connect with the audience or only with himself? 

Speechmaking is still the best way in a big country for us to connect with our leaders -- in politics but also in business -- short of a visit to the Oval Office or the C-suite.

The bar is set too low.

The public speaking bar is set too low.  I used to think it was only in the business world.  But now it's clear that the bar is set low in the political world as well.  I'd just forgotten how low it is.  There are both long-term and short-term reasons for this.  Watching the primary season speech coverage lately has made me aware of the problem all over again. 

The long-term reason has to do with message.  The Republicans have been 'on message' since forever; it's how they took over the political world in the last 25 years to begin with.  Lately, the Democrats, tired of losing, have gone on message too.  What does this mean in practice?

It means that everyone sings from the same song sheet, repeating the same messages over and over.  On the Republican side, they even use the same words.  The same 7 words, they boast. 

That has enormous virtue in a media-and-information-saturated age.  Nobody pays attention for long, so hit low and hard with simple stuff, and maybe it'll stick. 

The downside is that this doesn't respect the audience.  Speeches, communications, sound bites -- none of this barrage of information from both sides respects the audience's need to be engaged. 

A good speech is as much about the audience as it is the speaker, and the 2 parties have forgotten this in their need to stay on message.

The short-term reason is exahaustion and the need to reach so many people in such a huge country in such a short time.  The candidates are getting 30 minutes sleep some nights.  All they can do is repeat the stump speech over and over.  On message. 

For a clue as to why Senator Obama is so charging up his crowds, take a look at one of his speeches on the hustings.  His opening is all about the audience.  To be sure, he does get around to giving his message on change, but it's always couched in terms of the audience.  Most of the other candidates -- on both sides -- talk about themselves incessantly.  Here's what I would do, here's what I have done, and so on.  And Obama could be even better with more focus on the audience!  The bar is set so low by Bush, Kerry, Gore, and all the others, that he shines in comparison.   

It's time to raise the bar.  When you're giving a speech, make it about the audience.  That takes a lot of work -- you have to think about them and their problems more than yourself -- but the payoff is potentially huge.  Think Obama. 

Obama vs Huckabee

The pundits and TV talkers have missed the Big Thing that's happening in the country.  Everyone's talking about the vote for change in the Iowa caucuses, but what they don't seem to understand is that this is generational.  This is Kennedy all over again -- maybe more so.  The alphabet generations have watched with increasing disgust as the Bush administration has destroyed the environment, the economy, the middle class, the dollar, and trust in government.  And now the younger half of the country is talking back.  They're fed up with white bread politics, inauthenticity, and the stupidity that the administration has marketed as toughness.  They want change.  They want Change. 

That's why some of them are attracted to Huckabee's ironic humor.  But more of them are attracted to Obama's low-key authenticity. 

They want a planet they can live on safely, they want health care in case they ever get sick, and they want to work for something worthwhile. 

There's no way that Obama can give them all that, but if he can even slow down the environmental destruction this country is wreaking, take some steps toward universal health care, and -- oh yeah -- end the war in Iraq, he'll have done enough.

Carter was a president who made being president look hard.  He was mired in the details and too smart for his own good.  During the hostage crisis, he started learning Farsi, for heaven's sake. 

Now we have Bush, who makes being president look dangerous.  We can't afford to have another idiot in charge for another 8 years.  We can't afford the damage to the earth, to the country, to our place in the world, to our economy.  Let's hope the gen-x-y-and z-ers get out and vote in November.  It's time for a Change. 

The earth has a fever, and it's rising

Al Gore has learned a lot since his Presidential bid ended in failure 7 years ago.  Of course, he's learned more about the political process,to his chagrin, and about the environment, to his even greater chagrin.  But he has learned something positive:  how to write a good speech.  His delivery is still far from oratorical perfection, but the subject matter was so compelling that it lifted his performance above his usual level. 

The speech began with a long explanation of the problem.  The earth has a fever, and it is rising, said Gore.  He pulled quotes with the help of "Mr. Google," as he said in an interview, from writers all around the world, giving a nice universality to the message. 

The only aspect of the speech that rang oddly in my ears was Gore's insistence on calling global warming a 'moral' problem.  It probably is that, but it's a very practical life and death issue first.  Why not keep it on that plane?  As soon as you invoke morality, you run the danger of getting bogged down in discussions of whose morality counts or is to rule the day.  And that's a pity, because we really need to do something, actually a lot of things, and fast, if we're going to save ourselves from creating a hell on earth out of the Eden we were given lo these many years ago. 

He was a little vague on what the solution might be, except that it's already late, we have to move fast, and we have to act both individually AND collectively.  That was a nice touch, because many writers and speakers on the environment leave one with the impression that it's up to us to turn off lights and turn down the thermostat or else the world is a goner.  That makes most people feel guilty, and they may change their behavior slightly, but it doesn't affect governments, corporations, and other large organizations that are using massive amounts of energy that dwarf anything you or I can do with our lights or thermostat. 

What's needed is both governmental carrots and sticks, and individual green behavior, not just one or the other.  That's an important point, and Gore made it well.   

He ended with a plea for action, real and fast.  It was a good speech.  When are we all going to get to work? 

It's the little things

Under the pitiless glare of the television lights, the Republicans candidates are beginning to emerge as personalities, for better or for worse.  In the end, it will be the little things that add up to a character, electable or not.  The ridiculous sound-bite format that is our debate system doesn’t allow for real expression of ideas, and certainly not any of the subtleties.  It’s all slogans and posturing.  So it won’t be the content of one candidate or another that wins.  It will be the little things. 

How are the candidates faring?

Romney’s headed down – that’s my fearless prediction.  His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.  The Romney character, as it is emerging:  insincere.

He may change that impression if his Mormon speech is a killer, but don’t hold your breath.

Guiliani’s headed down, too.  He hunches his shoulders and tucks his chin in like a prize fighter.  He’s too relentless.  If you met him at a cocktail party, he’d be the guy who wouldn’t stop talking about Yak herding until you had to excuse yourself to the bathroom to escape him.  And 9/11 won’t hold up that well.  At some point, even the die-hard security nuts will be tired of hearing about it.

Thompson?  Too slow and too old.  He doesn’t look like he’s going to hold up under the rigorous schedule demanded of a president.  He takes too long to answer questions.  The television audience won’t wait, and he’s not going to win.

The one positive surprise?  Huckabee.  His cool, ironic manner is perfect for television.  His one-liner about Jesus being too smart to run for president is precisely the level of intelligence TV demands.  He’s warm and friendly, with a real smile, and we feel like Mr. Rogers has been reincarnated. 

Never mind that he’s from a minor state and has no foreign relations experience.  This isn’t about who would make the best president.  It’s about who’s the nicest guy on TV, and Huckabee wins, by a length.

Get used to it:  President Huckabee.   

If we had a real public discourse, what would that look like?

I recently came back to the US after a short trip abroad, and I was depressed to see that nothing had changed in our dumbed-down presidential campaign.  The media was still breathlessly hyping an upcoming debate as if it were only about "heat" and "trading punches." Guiliani was scoring cheap shots off Romney about a judicial appointment as if he hadn't had appointment problems of his own.  Is he an idiot?  Why does the media let him get away with it? 

Oh, right.  Because the media has the memory of a terminally ill gnat. 

All of that is depressing enough, but what's worse is that we have real problems in this country, ones that demand thoughtful discussion and difficult trade-offs and complex resolution.  U.S. soldiers are going to be dying in Iraq for many years.  What do we do about that, while still trying to make some headway elsewhere in the Middle East?  Fifteen percent of Americans have no health care.  When are we going to stop hurling accusations of "socialized medicine" around and help those people?  Have we lost our collective soul as well as our minds?  Our environmental performance is the worst in the world.  We pollute more, use more water every day, waste more energy, than any other country in the world.  When are we going to turn that around?  And, by the way, mitigate our dependence on foreign energy sources?  At least from countries that hold us hostage to our needs? 

And don't get me started on education. 

The point is, these issues demand real action, and before that can happen, we need real debate.  Not the cheap shots and convenient slogans the so-called debates bring us from sleep-deprived, bored politicians who have traded 30-second answers for months now to no obvious effect on either their polls or the American people's opinion of them. 

So, what would a real public discourse look like?  Here are a few suggestions.   

It would be partisan, but all parties would respect the facts. We need to get past ideology and hysteria and talk about how to solve problems in ways that actually work.  We need agreement at the outset that spin will be minimized and facts will be honored. 

It would locate the debate at the appropriate level.  Some issues are not presidential issues, and some are.  Why is President Bush helping with airplane congestion?  Because it's easier to do than, say, help New Orleans?  There are mayors of towns in Texas who are doing more about the environment than President Bush.  That's crazy.  At the very least, it's the hard way to solve the problem.  And there are local health authorities who are talking more about AIDS initiatives than the US Congress.  Shame on the Congress. 

It would minimize the ad hominem attacks and stick to the issues.  One of the most distasteful aspects of the current campaign is the vitriol thrown on all sides, but especially at Senator Clinton.  You may not like her politics, but that's no reason to attack the woman personally.  She has been an honorable public servant for many years.  Despite enormous amounts of energy, time, and taxpayers' money, no indictable offenses have ever been found on her part.  She deserves better at the hands of her opponents.  Shame on them.  They are not living their own values. 

What's going on in Washington?

While political junkies and members of the public who can't change the channels fast enough have been watching the endless campaign in New Hampshire and Iowa, those friendly folks back in Washington are spreading the love just so you won't forget them come election time.  Chuck Rangel got a Center for Public Service named after him at CCNY.  Tom Harkin is building schools and healthy life styles in Iowa, where you'd think they were already healthy enough.  Even Tom Daschle is gone but not forgotten -- he gets a Center for Public Service too, this one at South Dakota State University. 

The fun doesn't end there.  The First Ladies get a library and museum, in Ohio, sponsored by Congressman Regula.  The complex was founded by his wife and is run by his daughter.  That may be the single most egregious example of dipping into the public purse for personal benefit, but the Silliest Idea Award goes to the Woodstock Museum.  Yes, that Woodstock -- what was once the essence of counter-cultural excess is now a government-funded museum.  Is that irony?  Or just inanity?   

The Most Futile Idea Award goes to Arlen Specter, who's wrung almost $1 million from the Feds for abstinence education programs in Pennsylvania. 

It's amazing that our 'lawmakers' imagine that no one will notice in this era of instant communications.  I guess the truth is that even when you threaten them with ridicule and worse, they can't resist spending public money on private gratification.  Rangel's comment was telling.  In response to a fellow lawmaker's scolding, a Republican who said Rangel shouldn't be building 'monuments to himself', Rangel said, 'I would have a problem if you did it, because I don’t think that you’ve been around long enough to inspire a building like this.' 

That word 'inspire' says it all.  It contains an ocean of ego and self-satisfaction.  In his own mind, Rangel is a monument.  Too many people have said 'yes sir!' to him for too long. 

There may be no way to stop wasteful government spending.  There's too much fun and love -- self-love -- wrapped up in it. 

Don't count Edwards out yet....

The steroid-enhanced political campaign that has already gone on forever and will run another year before we vote has taken on an surreal certainty in the media -- at least on the Democratic side.  All the polls show Senator Clinton far enough ahead that the media can't imagine how anyone else could get in the game.  The meta-narrative on Senator Obama is that he doesn't have the experience, and no one else is near enough to count. 

And yet, Edwards on the hustings has a kind of purity that seems to be eluding Senators Clinton and Obama.  His campaign is unabashedly about the little person, against the lobbyists and the powers that be.  He favors health care for all, jobs for Americans, and, well, little people everywhere. 

His speech at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner showed all his strengths.  After a surprisingly inept introduction from Nancy Pelosi, Edwards launched into his progressive themes of health care, jobs, and making America better for our children.  He's running on behalf of the downtrodden, the sick, the needy, the people without health care, his buddies in the mill town where he grew up, the forgotten, and so on.  He told a pitch-perfect story about a man with a cleft palate who couldn't get the operation that would allow him to speak because he had no health care.  Finally, someone took pity on him, and gave him the operation for free -- when the gentleman was 50 years old. 

"America is better than that," says Edwards, and the crowd roars in agreement. 

As fed up as Americans are with the Bush administration, that rather simple progressive message may yet stick.  Don't count Edwards out yet.  If he can get past the suspicion that he's too cute for politics, and too opportunistic to be real, his messages may be the ones that carry the day. 

The cotton wool of the diplomatic speech

President Sarkozy of France recently addressed the U.S. Congress in a speech designed to thaw out the chill that had settled into Franco-American relations. 

He began by gushing about America's past: 

Here, both the humblest and most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That's what constitutes the moral value of America. America did not teach men the idea of freedom; she taught them how to practice it. And she fought for this freedom whenever she felt it to be threatened somewhere in the world. It was by watching America grow that men and women understood that freedom was possible.

What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind.

After working his way through some of the high points of American history, he gushed some more:

My generation shared all the American dreams. Our imaginations were fueled by the winning of the West and Hollywood. By Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington, Hemingway. By John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth. And by Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, fulfilling mankind's oldest dream.

Is it a great speech?  Almost certainly not.  It's too obviously placatory in nature to be truly persuasive.  But I guess it did the job.  The Congress was buzzing about it afterwards.  And they all trooped out with smiles on their faces. 

In any case, the speech is a textbook example of how to get on your audience's good side when you expect some antagonism may exist.  The speech is 3 parts flattery, 1 part gentle hints about some disagreements that won't go away.  And all of those come near the end.  By then, the Congress has presumably been cosseted into aquiescence, or at least quiescence. 

Rita Hayworth?  No disrespect to the actress, but come on.  Why is Sarkozy trying so hard?  The speech is something of a grovel.  In a way, it's disappointing.  I thought the French were too proud to grovel.  Maybe this is what the French have meant recently when they've said Sarkozy is not very French. 

Which Obama?

There's a lot of talk about the difference between the Obama we're seeing on the stump now and the Obama we saw at the Democratic National Convention in Boston back in 04.  People have noticed that the current Obama appears to be cooler, more deliberative, even a tad -- dare I say it -- boring.  They harken back to the heady night in the Fleet Center when Obama brought the house down and everyone in the country knew who he was for the first time and wanted more.

Bring back the Old Obama, some say.  Give us more of that excitement.  Give us more of that audacity of hope!

So I went back to the speech Obama gave that night to see what was really going on.  And the news is that are not two Obamas, but only one.  If you read the speech carefully, it is more evenhanded and deliberative than most of us may recall. 

Senator Obama begins his speech by recounting his story, and it is an irresistible one.  From the humble beginnings in Kenya to the American Dream, with just the right dose of self-deprecation along the way -- the story has us from the goats and the tin shack: 

Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father -- my grandfather -- was a cook. . . . But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America. 

Obama's next move is to the rule of law -- and the 'genius' of America:

That is the true genius of America, . . . a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are . . . safe from harm; that we can say what we think . . . without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted.

He then goes on to talk about the threats to that American dream in the form of offshoring jobs and rising health care costs.  But he immediately qualifies that traditional Democratic rhetoric with the following: 

Now, don’t get me wrong. The people I meet -- in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks -- they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead,  and they want to.

And that is the essential rhythm of the speech -- a touch of Democratic rhetoric followed by a cautious delineation of the limits of that rhetoric. 

We may remember the joy and the audacity of hope, because the emotional journey Obama took us on that night was a wonderful one, but his logic is that of the mediator, the legislator, the politician seeking to bring people together, not divide them.  There are not two Obamas.  There is only one, and we are getting to know him for real now in this long campaign. 

Giuliani and Churchill?

Giuliani's in England this week; the campaign trail is global now.  He's polishing up his image as a statesman, by meeting with Prime Ministers Blair and Brown, and a Living Churchill Relative.  Churchill's granddaughter said he was "Churchill in a baseball cap." 

Does the comparison hold?  Churchill spent a decade saying the unsayable, and then half a decade winning the unwinnable.  He spent his so-called 'wilderness years' out of favor, warning anyone who would listen about the danger the Nazis posed.  He paid heavily for it in his favorite coin -- power.  He was kept mostly out of it until the war started, things turned dire quickly, and Britain turned to him. 

As everyone knows, he came through magnificently, keeping Britain's hopes alive through some very dark times, staking almost everything on hanging in there until the recalcitrant Americans could be persuaded to join the War.  He said many times in private that if American helped in time the war could be won.  He was right.

Giuliani, by contrast, was an unpopular but reasonably effective mayor until 9/11, when he stood tall and became the nation's hero for a few weeks, and then a very well-paid business speaker.  He's now running for president on a platform of sticking it to the terrorists, reminding everyone at every conceivable moment about his role in 9/11.

I think it's fair to say that both gentlemen are leaders, and both show their best qualities under duress.  But the level of duress, and the subsequent qualities shown, are so different that the comparison ends there.  Mayor Giuliani, with respect, you're no Churchill. 

Indeed, one could argue that, in addition to hyping 9/11 shamelessly for political ends, Giuliani is committing a real strategic blunder by making so much of the terrorists.  It encourages them, makes recruiting easier for them, not to mention fundraising, and it gives what they did a false significance.

What Giuliani and the Republicans seem to forget is that, while the continuity of the British state was threatened by Germany in WWII, the terrorists are not anything like as significant a threat for Americans today.  The continuity of our state is not at issue.  Wall Street panicked briefly on 9/11, but the truth about markets is that they are incredibly resilient and were soon back in business.  Taking a day or two off from buying and selling shares is not morally, pratically, or strategically equivalent to the Battle of Britain. 

We've overblown the terrorist threat.  Yes, 2,900 deaths are a terrible thing.  And yes, it was shocking that the attacks took place in New York City -- home for some and close to home for most of us.  But the carnage on the highways in the United States every year is far higher, and we don't make such an enormous fuss over that.  It's time to start acting like grown-ups, recognize that "The War on Terrorism" is a little war, and behave accordingly. 

Senator Clinton's Health Care Speech

Senator Clinton's health care speech yesterday was a classic example of what happens when the policy wonks and the needs of rhetoric collide.  Her analysis was like the answer you get when you ask your grandmother how she's feeling -- too much information about diseases you'd rather not think about. 

More importantly, the speech illustrated beautifully what a speech can do well, and what it can't.

A speech can lead an audience through a decision-making process.  Decision-making is both emotional and intellectual.  We don't want to change our minds on the whole -- that takes mental effort.  So we cling to opinions, ideas, and beliefs long after reality has passed them by.  We need strong reasons to change -- and that means stories like the one Senator Clinton told about Judy and John Rose who suffered a series of catastrophic health events and so lost their life savings despite having insurance.  This story nicely taps into the insecurities people with insurance have. 

On the intellectual side, Clinton details a number of statistics that push us to consider the idea that something is wrong with American health care: 

We are the richest country in the world and we spend right now, more on health care than anyone else in the world. Two trillion dollars a year. But we're ranked 31st in life expectancy and 40th in child mortality. Each year, 18,000 people die in America because they don't have health care. Let me repeat that. Here in America, people are dying because they couldn't get the care they needed when they were sick.

Once we've heard the stories and the fact, we're more ready to hear Clinton's solution, basically a system of credits and mandates that will ensure that everyone buys some kind of private health insurance. 

So, in the main, a speech that respects the audience's need to decide on both intellectual and emotional terms, and leads that audience through the process correctly.  Good job.  What's wrong with it?

A speech is not a good means for elaborating the detail of a new proposal.  The speech is 6,000 words long, or roughly 45-48 minutes delivered.  Lots of studies of what people remember from speeches shows that they don't remember much -- something like 10 -30 percent.  (One study that suggested Power Point helped people retain more was funded by guess who?  Microsoft.  Don't believe it.)  A good rule of thumb for a speech is that it should only make one point, and every detail you include should support that point only.  This call for health care change is a filibuster. 

Clinton's speech is filled with her various proposals and good works on behalf of many constituencies and health care issues.  By the time we're half way through, the clarity of her proposal is lost in the endless detail and history.  What could have been a great speech and a powerful call to action instead becomes defensive and meandering. 

Her speechwriters need a good editor.  You can't say it all effectively in a speech.  You have to have a relentless focus on what you want the audience to do differently as a result of the rhetoric.  Less is most certainly more.  This example is a good first draft, but it needs heaving editing to have real power. 

The President's Speech on Iraq

I'll leave it to the warriors to pass judgment on the accuracy of President Bush's military assessment of Iraq in his address last night.  As a speech, it had one major failing, and many minor ones. 

The major failing was that the President didn't seriously take on the debate over the war by acknowledging that there is enormous opposition to his administration's position.  About three-quarters of the way through the talk, he says:

Americans want our country to be safe and our troops to begin coming home from Iraq. Yet those of us who believe success in Iraq is essential to our security, and those who believe we should bring our troops home, have been at odds. Now, because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home.

The way forward I have described tonight makes it possible, for the first time in years, for people who have been on opposite sides of this difficult debate to come together.

That's too little, too late.  If you want to sway the opposition, you have to first show that you take their arguments seriously by paraphrasing them with some integrity, not merely alluding to them.  Then, and only then, can you state your own position and expect to be heard. 

The ancient Greeks understood the necessity of showing the opposition that they've been heard; they called it the 'residues' method.  You talk about the other possible positions, show what's wrong with them (respectfully), and then the 'residue' of the argument that's left is your position.   

By not showing the opposition that it has been heard, all President Bush will accomplish with this speech is to harden the determination of his foes. 

That's the major failing of the address.  The minor failings include beginning with Iraq's perspective, not his own -- it sounds disengenuous.  (In Iraq, an ally of the United States is fighting for its survival.)  That's not how the war started, and everyone knows it.  Second, his claims of progress simply sound feeble after so many years of effort.  His rhetoric raises the implicit question, why did he wait so long to try a surge?  If progress is being made now, why not more troops years ago?  It hardly deserves to be called a strategy.  Third, there are many implicit admissions of failure and change of heart in the speech, but no explicit ones.  It would have been much more elegant and powerful to acknowledge some of those mistakes. 

In the end, not a great speech.  Not a rhetorically sophisticated one, and not one which will change many minds.

How to announce you're running on YouTube

Fred Thompson tried too hard; Mark Warner didn't try hard enough.  The problem with those canned little announcements on You Tube seems to be that the wanna-be candidates feel self-conscious and so their performances are stiff and awkward. 

Where Fred looked like a bobble-headed doll, Mark Warner looks like he was coached "just to be himself."  The result is a low-key, deeply non-energetic performance with a half-smile or two and not much passion. 

It's not a natural thing, to have bright lights shone upon you, and cue cards held up, and to say the same words over and over again until someone decides your performance is OK.  It's not easy to do; but these guys make it look harder than it has to be.

So, if you find yourself taping for You Tube, keep a couple of things in mind.  First of all, you want to look like you're having a real conversation.  So put someone just behind the camera and talk to them.  If you do that, you lose that vague, not-quite-present feeling that Mark Warner had, because he was presumably talking to a glowing red dot. 

Second, don't try to get haiku up on the screen.  Of course you need to think about what you should say, and even script it, but when the time comes, throw the script away, talk to the real person for, say, 25 minutes, with the camera rolling, and then take your best 3.5 minutes from that.  Think about how much more lively and interesting the movie out-takes usually are compared to the performances -- that's the feeling you want to achieve.  Nearly human. 

Third, put your butt against the back of the chair and sit up straight.  Then have that conversation like you're excited about what you're doing!  Mark Warner's shoulders were slumped, his affect was flat, and his facial expressions were muted.  He's trying to run for Senate, for heaven's sake.  It's going to take a whole lotta time, people, and enthusiasm.  Give us a little more at the get-go. 

Most people aren't good actors -- most actors aren't good actors -- and this stuff is hard to make sound real.  But keeping a few rules in mind will make it a little easier. 

Bush and the Neo-cons had their chance

Once again the political debate is caught between minutiae and generalities so platitudinous as to be meaningless. 

President Bush wants our attention focused on the good General Petraeus and small variations on troop levels over the next year.  Basically, this focus allows him to buy time.  Maybe things will turn around on the ground in Iraq.  Maybe the Iraquis will suddenly decide to make peace and live like brothers.  Maybe pigs will fly.

The Democrats, on the other hand, talk about ending the war and bringing the troops home, without any nuanced sense of how that might really be done.  Senator Biden is the exception; he regularly talks about how long it will take to put all the troops on a bus and ship them out.  Years, apparently.  Who knew it took so long to get on a bus? 

The real debate should be focused on the world view that brought us this debacle.  President Bush and the Neo-cons had their chance.  They got to try their mixture of bellicosity and wishful thinking (‘if only we rattle our sabers enough, democracy will spring up like corn in Kansas’.) 

This philosophy failed miserably, and yet it is essentially what all the current Republican candidates are espousing.  And what have the Democrats offered in return?  A silly argument about when a president should talk to Castro. 

They’d better do it soon, or they’ll have to enlist the services of a medium.

It’s time for a more sophisticated discussion of what America’s role is in the world.  We citizens of the world’s largest democracy tend to have a rosy, rather naïve view of our purpose on the planet, and others’ views of us.  We vaguely imagine that we wish the world well, except for those Axis of Evil countries and some shadowy narco-terrorists, and that the world wishes us well in return. 

But the reality is a little darker than that. 

Quick quiz.  What do the following nation-states have in common?

Hawaii, Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. 

Answer:  from 1893 to today, leaving aside the two World Wars, the United States engaged in wars, regime changes, or other military adventures in each of these (former) countries. 

Some we annexed, some we set up as puppets, some we just destroyed – or attempted to destroy. 

Do we really mean the rest of the world well?  What is our role on the planet?  If we’re the world’s most powerful state, and most powerful democracy, isn’t it time we started acting responsibly to make the planet a better place for everyone? 

Where have all the protestors gone?

The Democrats have no spines.  The sum total of all their efforts to end the Iraq War since the election was supposed to give them a mandate for change has been a few toothless resolutions. 

It's not even that it should take enormous courage -- the public overwhelming polls in favor of ending the war. 

What happened?  What are the Democrats afraid of?  Why are they so useless? 

Here's a theory.  They have once again allowed Bush's rhetoric to define the argument.  They haven't developed a strong answer to the 'After the Pullout, Chaos' theory that Bush et al have put forward so successfully.

Are any Democrats old enough to remember that the same argument was put forward during Vietnam?  It was called the domino theory, and it didn't turn out to be the case.

It was an example then, and it is an example once again, of what we logicians call the 'either/or fallacy'.  In this case, "either we keep the troops in forever, or chaos results'. 

In fact, there are lots of other possibilities.  Would chaos result over a gradual 'draw-down' of the troops?  What if US troops pulled back to define the borders of three sectarian areas of Iraq?  What if US troops re-deployed to defend the borders against belligerents like Iran?  And so on.  The point is that there are lots of possible options short of chaos. 

It's time for the Democrats to find their spines and start putting forward real options instead of sounding so helpless in the face of Bushean rhetoric.  It really doesn't have to be 'apres moi, le deluge'. 

Not Ready for Prime Time

I’ve just pored over the Fred Thompson announcement speech in Des Moines.  I wanted to like the guy, for some reason – probably because he looks like a friendly grandfather, and he’s got that celebrity status. 

But, come on.  The speech is terrible, on so many levels.  First, it’s folksy to excess.  It sounds like it was written for Jimmy Stewart on his way to Washington – except Fred doesn’t seem to have much compassion for the little guy anywhere in his speech, like Jimmy always did. 

The world is a tough place, these days, and we don’t need ‘just folks’ running our government.  We need really smart, really honest, really principled people willing to come in early, stay late, and work hard while they're there.  Drop the dumb rhetoric, Fred, and show us who you really are. 

Second, it’s based on the same simple-minded conservative rant that George Bush ran on in 2000, and then jettisoned as soon as he got into office.  Why should anyone believe it this time?  (That’s assuming you agree with the rant, of course, and you really can’t, not if you have a brain.) 

Third, it’s organized around what Fred calls ‘principles’ but which turn out to be ‘political hot buttons of the day’.  One moment he’s talking about the sanctity of life, and the next moment he’s talking about putting Iraq in our rearview mirror and taking on the ‘worldwide conflict’.  So, let me get this straight, Fred – your sanctity of life is selective, and depends on where you’re born, or grow up, or your religion, that kind of thing?  Hmmmm.  Attractive.

Fred wants a strong, competent, but limited government – something like a bantam-weight fighter, I suppose.  Is that the limited government that dealt so well with Katrina?  I’m sorry, Fred, but your hot button principles are outdated.  We have 300 million people in this country, and we need a heck of a lot of government to protect us from those crazies out there – and from ourselves. 

OK, Sure, we need a competent government.  Everyone knows that.  Every politician in America at some point raises his or her fist to the sky and says, “we need to stick it to those bums in Washington,” forgetting for the moment that he or she is one of those bums -- or on their payroll.  Everyone except perhaps Senator Clinton. 

I wanted to like Fred.  But his speech is not ready for prime time, yet.  He needs to sharpen up his act.  We’ve got complicated problems to deal with – we don’t need the same tired old conservative slogans.  They’re the ones that got us into this mess. 

September 7, 2007

The Health Care Un-System

Republicans threaten us with Big Government run even more amok.  Democrats regale us with stories of the little guy crushed by giant insensitive insurers.  It’s easy to frighten us with big bureaucracies – public or private – because they so often fail.  They have to create overarching rules that by their very nature don’t have much flexibility in them for individual cases.  That’s what the words ‘big bureaucracies’ mean. 

But America is a big country.  Get used to it.  We have to devise some sort of health care system that works – one that covers all Americans and doesn’t hold the ordinary taxpayer and voter hostage to the needs of some interest group or bureaucracy. 

Once again, the debate on either side is not serving this need.  It’s time for the Republicans to own up that private insurers are not going to step up and serve the country and its population as we need them to do.  They’ve had plenty of time to try, and they’ve used that time to cherry-pick the healthiest citizens and deny legitimate claims to people who subsequently suffer and die. 

It’s not a pretty record.

And, it’s time for the Democrats to admit that Medicare/Medicaid is not a panacea and the United States Government has a terrible track record in trying to administer anything to all its citizens. 

Also not a pretty record. 

France seems to be able to get health care done, and so does the Netherlands.  Why are we so stupid? 

To be a civilized country means to secure some basic rights for its citizens, and to extend some basic services.  Lately, we’ve spent so much money on the Iraq War that apparently we’ve had nothing left over for things that we should have been doing all along. 

We’ve also spent our political will in the same way, it seems.

It’s time to spend our money and will on the right things, and that begins with some sort of universal health care system.  Public-private partnerships are tough to work out, but when they are worked out they often serve people well.  It’s time for people of good will to come to the aid of their country and sort out a health care system for all. 

September 6, 2007

Strange Micro-expressions

Everyone gives a little bit of their true feelings away – especially if their true feelings are at odds with what they’re saying – in fleeting micro-expressions that last less than a second and are often missed by those watching. 

Fred Thompson’s YouTube announcement that he’s about to announce is a fascinating case in point.  The script is unexceptional – all about unity and muscle:

On the next president’s watch, our country will make decisions that will affect our lives and our families far into the future. We can’t allow ourselves to become a weaker, less prosperous and more divided nation. Today, as before, the fate of millions across the world depends on the unity and resolve of the American people.

OK, there’s not much there, especially after making us wait so long for the big day. 

But what’s interesting are Fred’s micro-expressions.  He’s got the concerned, open wrinkled forehead.  He ducks his head a lot, like Ronald Reagan did so effectively on TV in his day – except that Fred does it a little too much.  He looks like Fred Bobblehead Doll Thompson.  And then, at the end of each phrase, he pulls the corners of his mouth down in an expression of disgust – as if he is aghast at something that he’s thinking about.

What is it?  The script?  His candidacy?  The terrible state of American politics and our standing in the world?  Tell us, Fred – you’re running for President.  You should tell us the truth, right?

September 5, 2007

What's wrong with the Republicans?

We are hungry to vote for a new President, and for most of us it will be a relief to have the campaign over.  The campaign hasn’t really begun in earnest, yet it seems to have been going on forever.  It has been an endless run of superficial debates, cheap shots, easy slogans, and ill-considered promises – on both sides of the party divide.  And the Republicans, with all their usual clarity and money, have so far failed to stick in the minds of the voters, according to the polls.

This is indeed an election season of paradoxes. 

The main cause is, of course, the Iraq War, which has exhausted America’s martial enthusiasm and made our name mud around the world. 

The Republican candidates feel duty-bound to support the President and the War to some extent, despite their monumental unpopularity, and so the party’s bellicosity, which usually comes so naturally, is currently uncomfortably worn. 

To say that the national discourse has sunk to new lows is to state the obvious, and, I suppose, the inevitable.  War rarely brings out the best in politicians, and losing wars never do.

Nonetheless, the country needs to pull up its rhetorical socks and get to work seriously debating real issues.  We need to find a way to clean up the mess in Iraq without turning loose the Furies in the Middle East.  We then need to turn our attention to some issues that are more important in the long run – the environment, health care, and education – because they will influence the history of the planet in more lasting ways than even the Sack of Baghdad. 

If the next President can influence these issues for the good, he or she will be remembered as wise a President and as a great a leader as President Bush was not. 

September 4, 2007