A General Sacked

Speech By: President Obama
Title: Resignation of General McChrystal
Date: June 23, 2010
Location: Rose Garden
Occasion: Resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Analysis:
These remarks are not a case of how well something is said, but rather, the substance of what is said, and how decisively the words are delivered. By that measure, these remarks meet the standard admirably well.

Let’s start by not mincing words - General Stanley McChrystal was fired, he did not just resign. Let’s take it one step further - he should have been fired.

The Bully Pulpit has covered the controversy between Gen. McChrystal and the President, beginning with the General’s speech last Fall in which he indicated 40,000 more troops were needed in Afghanistan. It came close to crossing the line of insubordination, but was not overtly political. Still, the speech did serve to put unwelcome political pressure on the General’s ultimate boss - the Commander in Chief.

In response, the Commander in Chief went directly to West Point - to speak in front of those who would have to carry out whatever decision he announced - to deliver his reply.

It is the highest tradition of the American military, that its members ultimately take their orders from civilians. That they do this without public challenge, has given us a nation worthy of the lives they are willing to expend in its defense.

The most notable exception to this honored tradition was General MacArthur’s public challenge of President Truman during the Korean War. While it cost him political standing, Truman’s response, to fire MacArthur, ultimately strengthened the nation, and the Presidency itself.

While General McChrystal’s staff antics - speaking with open contempt of elected civilian officials in the presence of a reporter for Rolling Stone - may not quite rise to the same level as MacArthur, they are egregious enough. Given the previous history, there really seemed no choice. The President’s swift, decisive action in this case, is in the high tradition of President Truman, and America itself.

Length (words): 1176
Text Posted: White House Web Site


From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Rock Star of a Speech

Title: Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat
Speech By: Winston Churchill
Date: May 13, 1940
Location: House of Commons
Occasion: First Speech as Prime Minister

Analysis:
Let’s begin by dispelling an urban legend. Despite the claim of a music publicist a generation later, this speech did not provide the inspiration for the name of a rock and roll band.

But it is a rock star of a speech.

It is a short speech, and it is Churchill’s first speech before Parliament, as the nation’s new Prime Minister. Early on, it is heavy on the administrative elements of establishing a new government.  He outlines what has been done to establish the new government, then asks the house “to record its approval of the steps taken and to declare its confidence in the new Government.”

With the administrative functions complete he launches into the travails he sees ahead. It would still be more than a year and a half before the United States joined the war, and his nation had already been at war for seven months.

He prepares his government for the difficulties of the struggle ahead - “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

Then he sets out the task before the nation:
“You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.”

It is a call to action, direct, pointed, unambiguous. It is a wonderful way to inspire an audience. In this case, it inspired all those who longed to be free of the Nazi terror.

Seventy years later, it inspires free people still.

Text Posted: The Churchill Centre
Length (words): 730

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Boys of Pointe du Hoc

Speech By:  President Ronald Reagan
Title: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc
Date: June 6, 1984
Location: Pointe du Hoc, France
Occasion: 40th Anniversary of D-Day
Analysis:
They landed at the bottom of the cliffs on D-Day, 225 Rangers assigned to scale the sheer cliffs on ropes, battling German defenders above the whole way up. Those lucky enough to reach the top, then had to take the German 155 howitzers whose sights were trained on the beaches at Normandy. After two days of fighting, the Rangers had suffered 60% casualties.

This was the heroic feat commemorated in President Ronald Reagan’s speech “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc.” While no mere ceremony could be equal to their feats of valor, this speech is at least worthy of describing them.

This is a masterpiece of the collaboration between speech writer and speaker. Written by Peggy Noonan, she brings a visual quality to the description of the scene, using plain language. “We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.”

The opening sentence launches into the speech without hesitation, and establishes that all-important shared identification with the audience. In this case it’s a simple but inarguable premise - We all owe these men a very great deal: “We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty.”

The symbolic meaning of the memorial being dedicated that day is revealed: “Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.”

Then come the simple yet memorable lines from which the speech takes its name: “These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.” Repetition. Like bullet points on a sheet of paper. Notice how each line builds in significance - to show the true importance of what these men accomplished.

As befits an international ceremony, it does not stint on praise for the honor, the resolve, and the sacrifice of all the allies who took part in the liberation of Europe - it speaks of the valor of the Poles, and the Canadians, with a thinly-veiled reference to the disastrous raid at Dieppe two years earlier. Then a seeming roll call of the units involved: “All of these men were part of a rollcall of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet” and you, the American Rangers.”

Three years before his speech at the Brandenburg Gate, Reagan does not hesitate to call one of the allied partners up short: “Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost 40 years after the war.”

Yet he also offers assurance there is no quarrel with the Soviet people, and that he recognizes their own suffering and valor in the War: “It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the Earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.”

If you listened to just the audio of this speech there would be points where it seemed that maybe Reagan had lost his way, that there were awkward silences. But if you watch the video, it becomes apparent he is taking his time to pause deliberately, to seek out faces in the crowd - particularly those Rangers that crowd was there to honor. When I referred earlier to the great collaboration between speech writer and speaker, this is the part where a speaker is always on their own, and the “Great Communicator” is more than equal to the task. He is, in fact, its Master.

Notice, finally, that in the video Reagan constantly refers to index cards to prompt him along during the speech. Today that would most likely be a teleprompter. It seems as anachronistic as watching a P-51 Mustang fly into battle today. But both got the job done in their time.

Length (words): 1843
Text Posted: The History Place
Video Posted: Reagan Foundation

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom