I know I retired opera singer here in Germany who speaks four or five languages beautifully whom I once asked whether he had any problems or fears about remembering the words to a song that he was about to perform. He said no it never was a consideration, he never had the slightest problem or doubt. I suppose that had something to do with this wonderful facility with languages together with his ability to capture tone as a musician which he possessed also in spoken language.
I was all the more awed by his talents because I am utterly incapable of singing any song, I cannot carry a tune, I cannot remember the words and I have no inclination to do either. I was the only child in the seventh grade who was instructed by the music teacher to mouth the words when the parents came for the actual recital. I do not listen to music radio, I listen to talk radio and have done so long before Rush Limbaugh came on the scene.
So when I heard Barack Obama make his early speeches and then gave due attention to the pundits as they explained to me afterwards what I had just seen with my own eyes, I was convinced that here was another example of my tone deafness. I just did not get it, which means I did not get Barack Obama. I still do not. I am uniquely immune to the power of his forensic performance.
Immune to his histrionics I was free to search for substance but found none and so my reaction to the early exposures to Barack Obama was that he was no threat, meaning that he could not be nominated and if nominated he could not be elected. I recite all this so that the reader is never again attempted to put any weight in my judgment about how well or poorly candidates fare in debates, a subject which I unabashedly feel fully capable of pontificating upon and often do so at great length.
I still do not know whether I was again morbidly tone deaf or whether I was on the mark and it was the media that created the myth around the man.
Just to add to your Post.
My Late Aunt lost her Sight to Glaucoma when she was in her early 20’s. Back then there was nothing that could be done.
I remember to this day when she told me she listened to one of Obama’s Speeches back in 2008. All she said was, that guy is a Phony, one of her favorite descriptive terms.
She had no preconditioned thoughts about Obama since she was sightless, she just knew who and what he was and she was absolutely correct.
As for me, I don’t get it either. People go on about Obama’s eloquence, intelligence, personality and his “good looks” (yuck). I look at them and wonder what color the Sky is in their World. They have no idea who this guy is or where he came from, but they base their entire viewpoint of him on Faith that is supported by the Media.
They say he is a Constitutional Lawyer, he is not. They say he is Highly Intelligent, he is not. They say he wants to Unite the Country, he has not.
When you dare to question what leads them to their conclusions about Obama, they stare at you thinking to themselves, don’t you know? It is beyond creepy how half the Country can be manipulated so easily.
As a Child in the mid fifties, I remember watching movies on TV of the bodies of Jews being bulldozed into Mass Graves after the Allies Liberated the Camps. I asked my Mother how the German People could follow such an Evil Person like Hitler. She just told me she didn’t know.
Well, today I am the one who doesn’t know how half my Countrymen can support Evil, but they do and they do it proudly.