Obama's Oratory: A Key Political Advantage
The reviews are in on President Obama’s speech before Congress Tuesday night. Lots and lots and lots of reviews; good ones, from the people you’d expect would be giving Obama good reviews, and some bad ones from people you’d expect….. well, you know what I’m saying. But I’ll tell you one group of people I’m guessing was VERY impressed with the address, and feel that having President Obama in office is going to make their jobs much easier: speech teachers.
It was certainly well-known before last night that Barack Obama is a gifted speaker. But never before had he been under such a microscope coming into a major speech. Not just what policies he would propose for dealing with the dismal economy, but what his overall tone would be, his bearing, his expressions. But if he was feeling the pressure of the expectations, he didn’t show it. From Slate:
If a President can show up to make a speech about some of the worst problems facing our nation in generations, and still look like a guy who was having fun, that’s a confident speaker. It’s a good rule of thumb for Speech 101: act like you belong there.
But, as any teacher will tell you, the real test of a speech is how it affected the audience. Did it change any minds? Did it evoke strong responses and feelings? As cbsnews.com reported, Obama nailed it on this count:
So whatever you thought about the content of the speech, from the point of view of the White House, it was effective. Not so much for the Republican response, delivered by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. He got negative reviews across the board.
“..much of the critique of Jindal's address focused on his hokey, folksy, seemingly-forced tone and vernacular. The Governor, who has never held court on the national stage before -- remember, his speech at the Republican convention was called off after Hurricane Gustav made landfall -- showed a bit of wetness behind the ears. And the commentators let him have it even on Fox News.BRIT HUME: "The speech read a lot better than it sounded. This was not Bobby Jindal's greatest oratorical moment."
NINA EASTON: "The delivery was not exactly terrific."
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "Jindal didn't have a chance. He follows Obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. He's in a Reagan-esque league. ... [Jindal] tried the best he could."
JUAN WILLIAMS: "It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. He was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.”
Superior speaking skills gave the President a big advantage in the part of this national debate that played out last night. With Barack Obama in the White House, expect a golden age for speech instruction. It’s always nice to have someone to point to and say, basically, “do that.” I’ll close with a link to an article written months before Obama’s election. It’s by someone who studies the way certain leaders have the ability to move an audience. It should be very helpful to speech teachers and students. And a bit distressing for many Republicans.
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Comments: 6
It's obvious that you voted for McCain.
Your white bread image is very apparent. Of course, you are in the upper to higher middle class or above. You must be a Republican, and there are hints of it in your writing.
Lets remember who also gave great speeches...... Adolph Hitler! I see a lot of similarities between Hitler and Obama
I think that he did an excellent job. I think all english teachers and speech professors every where in every university and college will now encourage their students to be more serious about their studies and have confidence when they speak and how they speak. The fact that the president would even mention education and its importance sends a clear message to both adults and youngsters...Go Obama.
Yes...The clear message to tell the youth....if you want to be lazy and not work, no problem we have the funds to live off welfare. Great job Obama!!
Was it necessary to post the same comment for 5 times?
Anyway, giving impressive speech is the easy part, just need some "right words" and say them with the right altitude, plus Obama's strong image and still high approval rate, an impressive speech is not much harder than a piece of cake.
What the gov need to do (or not to do) and act on it is the hard part.
For starter, while the gov wants to spend this hundreds of billions (even goes to trillions) of dollars of "stimulus" package, no one seems to ask the gov that how are they plan to pay for this? And why the gov can continue to spend what they don't have? It's like the gov has a credit card that has no credit line.
Don't been so happy about all the all "offers" inside the package yet, because it also comes with a huge amount of tax bill later on that you are going to pay for the rest of your life, unto your kids and grandkids. Really, where you do think the gov's money come from? They are surely not come from the thin air.
There are only two ways to pay for this package, one is what I wrote above, left it to our kids and grandkids. The second choice to print money like to crazy to pay. Of course it is not free, the price behind is huge inflation - US dollar doesn't worth much anymore. Apparently the gov may be mistaken dollar bill with printout papers.