Posted on 01/17/2007 11:56:49 AM PST by JZelle
The rap on George W. Bush is that he can't make a rousing speech like Winston Churchill, and indeed he can't. But who can? Not Hillary, not "the husband of," not John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, or even Barack Obama, worthies all. Churchill marshaled the language and sent it off to World War II. He was sui generis, one of a kind, an orator who played rhetoric like Babe Ruth hit home runs and Brooks Robinson played third base. But Churchill, the electrifier of frightened audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, had an advantage that neither George W. nor the pretenders do. He had an audience wired to be electrified.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I'm not interested in a Churchill. I frankly don't give a tinker's damn whether or not a politician can make a pretty stump speech. What I care about is a well thought-out and executed policy, the rest is just icing on the cake.
I understand your point, and I agree that action is more important than talk. But I disagree that "talk is cheap". The ability to project passion and change hearts through words is one of humankind's greatest weapons. At the time Churchill took the office of the Prime Minister, all England had were his words to cling to.
When it gets tough here in America, we will also find great speakers, but since it isn't actually tough like during the dark days of WW II it is hard to bring that level of resolve to mere talk.
Who gave the Dem response to Churchill's speaches?
I wrote about this not long ago. Democrats, and even some Republicans now, blame the President for not being able to "get his message to the American people." There are several factors in play, of course. Use the rallying words "crusade" or "islamofascism," and the Muslim organizations are all over his case. Our Saudi "friends" (who have bucked the OPEC desire to decrease oil output and who have no military of their own) get all upset and complain. The liberal media must also then complain about "The Crusades" and those evil Christians. President Bush has been walking a tightrope that no other president has ever had to walk. This is NOT Vietnam. That ethnic enemy did not live and plot among us.
The poster who mentioned that the American people can only ingest sound bites and headlines is correct. It is not President Bush's fault that we have the most ignorant electorate in the history of this country. When does it become the responsibility OF THE PEOPLE to look at a map, read and study history, follow current events closely, to learn and to understand?
I am old enough to remember when our school teachers taught us who our enemies were, rather than that America is bad. I absorbed their patriotism and that of my parents. Our children don't have that. They are fed moral relativism. They learn through supposedly benign multicultural experiences that all people everywhere are good, so the question/answer becomes "if the United States military is killing these "good" people, then America must be wrong, bad, or just doing bad things. This makes them ripe for the indoctrination they will receive in our colleges and universities.
We are reaching critical mass, folks. We have a generation coming up that was taught that everything revolved around them. It's well past time to burst the bubble of self-esteem they live in.
Alot of people DON'T think anything is at stake in the Middle East though. Mostly Democrats but some Republicans.
i think you hit the nail right on the head. bush is too premature. what is needed is to have the bombs falling, so to speak, to let everyone know that the issue is real. then, once the tail has been lit, even the opposition and the left will know there is a fire that has to be put out.
i hate to think that they "have to have" another 9-11 to make them wake up in order to be a receptive audience..
IMO
That was a good one.
Well, just look around. Is anybody bothering to keep a kind of watchful eye on their street, when they park at the mall, if they go to a show? The threat that it could get bad any day isn't doing it. If it gets bad, then we'll go through a period of shock, especially when we pull up to the gas station and find they have no gasoline and we have to continue on foot. Eventually we will pull through I have no doubt, but it could be a very long time.
ping
The administration neeeds a point man to get out in the media, in their face everyday. The president HAS articulated very well how Iraq fits in the WOT(I call it the war on islam)but if the msm ignores it and pushes their own enemy agenda then that's all a lot of citizens know. Sad, that even with the internet, so many are so criminally misinformed.
The President simply doesn't get it. When the NYT reveals secret information, their reporters and editors should be called in front of a Grand Jury and, under oath, required to divulge their sources. If they refuse, off to jail with them. The President should be following policies to eliminate the stranglehold the Enemy Media have over the public perception.
how 'bout the speech President Bush gave late one night and it was watched at halftime on a soccer overhead 4 screen by all in attendence, after the speech,the game just quit.....there was a 2nd half but what the hell , the president just spoke to the nation and soccer THAT night was unimportant........remember that ???
Yes - astonishing, isn't it? I wonder, though, if his histrionics would have transfered well to television - certainly we have not yet seem the rise of an political orator as effective on television as Hiller's performance on film before a mass live audience.
"Does anyone here want to survive?"
Well, I do. But I fear that western society does not. Take a hard look at demographic trends and draw your own conclusions as to whether your granddaughters will be wearing the burqa or not.
I heard the President speak frankly about the islamo-fascist threat once, and after the P.C. brigade cried out he went back to the platitudes he's mainly relied on in his stump GWOT speech.
our leaders are the worst of the worst generation in American history.
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