Lipstick

Speech By: Marion Roach Smith

Date: 2002

Location: Albany Academy for Girls

Occasion: Commencement

Analysis:

Let’s begin with full disclosure – Marion Roach Smith is a friend, and writing instructor. She teaches an excellent writing class here in the capitol region, and, whether you are looking to develop, or just hone your writing skills, I highly recommend it.

That said – let’s take a look at 15 Rules for Us Girls to Live By.

One of the difficult tasks in delivering a commencement address is the opening. While it is the speaker’s assigned mission to offer insight and words of wisdom to the audience, from the speaker’s own perspective, “I” is a terrible way to start a speech. Yet people are there to listen to what “You” have to say.

Marion handles this dilemma quite nicely. “Why would I be asked to speak at a school commencement, my daughter wanted to know?” It’s a great start, because it’s a little self-deprecating, it’s a question asked by someone else, and, it’s even a great way to let the audience know she has a daughter. That last point means she has created instant identification with the two main elements of the audience – the parents, who are obviously also the parents of daughters, and those daughters themselves.

Then she proceeds to focus attention directly on the new graduates by offering her 15 rules.

First is: “Never be without at least one pair of red shoes. There are few situations in life that cannot be improved by them.” All right, I have to confess – I’m not really a “red shoes” kind of guy. Although I do have a pair of white bucks, which, worn with the blue seersucker suit on a bright summer day, makes people notice. In a good way. So I kind of get this.

Next is: “Don’t read the Cliff Notes. Read the book.” Face it, this is not a rule for “Us Girls,” it’s a rule for everybody. I already knew what evolution was, and how it worked, when I read Darwin’s Origin of Species. But reading the book, and understanding how he arrived at his conclusions, made Darwin’s theory available in a new way. I hope by now, eight years later, those in Marion’s audience are able to cite their own examples.

Next we get to: “Wear lipstick.” All right, we have now reached a point in the speech that far exceeds by limited ability to fathom. I don’t get lipstick. I don’t just mean on me – I don’t even get why women wear it! So, to make it a “rule to live by,” simply is beyond my comprehension.

Marion goes on to explain: “It feels great, and it’s fun, and all too often we depend on other people to make us feel good and show us a good time. Get yourself some lipstick, and every time you apply it, remember that this is one of your rules of life: to show yourself a good time, in your shade, on your terms.”

Indeed.

In case you hadn’t figured it out yet, I’m a real guy, and particularly fond of the girl-next-door look to boot. This explanation still hasn’t helped much.

The nearest I can figure is that wearing lipstick for a woman is like throwing a ball for a man. There’s nothing like picking up a ball at a picnic or on a playground, and throwing a nice tight spiral. It’s even better if you can snap off a throw with zip, maybe enough to get that nasty little hum which warns the guy about to catch it that his hands are going to burn when he does. Then the guy at the receiving end picks it back up and tries to throw it back exactly the same way. Perhaps it’s like that.

I don’t know.

So why am I focusing so much attention on one out of fifteen rules, particularly one I admittedly don’t understand? Here’s the thing – I don’t need to know. It’s not intended for me, or anyone like me. It was meant to be heard, and understood, by the girls of the Albany Academy. Marion has not only connected with those girls in a way they can personally identify – but in a way that even has the power to exclude some of those listeners for whom the speech is not intended! What wonderful shared identification!

There are a dozen more rules, many of which apply to everyone, some of which – not so much. But I bet Marion had their attention for every one of them!

Text Posted: 15 Rules for Us Girls to Live By

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Tear Down This Wall - Back Story

How does a Presidential speech get written? As I’ve mentioned here, or here, a Presidential speech is almost never a case of one writer, no matter how talented, sitting down at a desk and whipping up some stirring rhetoric. It almost always involves input from various departments of a very large government.

Each of those has specific, and to their mind at least, quite convincing arguments about why the President should say what they want the President to say. Most often, they get their way.

In fact, it’s a wonder a President ever has anything to say that’s even worth listening to.

Today I ran across a fascinating blog post by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who was one of President Reagan’s speech writers for his “Tear Down This Wall” speech.

He describes the strategy the President’s speech writers employed to get the speech past powerful figures like Secretary of State George Schultz, and General Colin Powell. Rohrabacher and his colleagues knew that the phrase “Tear down this wall,” would be problematic for the senior advisors who normally have enough influence to get things taken from a speech.

By getting their draft into the President’s hands before it could be watered down by his advisors, the speech writers managed to create something powerful, and memorable.

Today, the line they had to fight so hard to preserve, is what is most memorable about that speech.

Just imagine if Reagan had gone to Berlin and merely said “we think this wall is a really bad idea,” rather than hurl his unmistakable challenge to Gorbachev, with the whole world watching.

Bonn might still be the Capitol of a nation known as West Germany!

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

State of the Union 2011

Speech By: President Obama

Date: January 25, 2011

Location: House of Representatives

Occasion: State of the Union

Analysis:

It may be that he set the bar so high with his speech in Arizona, that any subsequent effort would be a mere shadow in its wake; or, maybe, it may be the nature of the speech itself, which is akin to a homeowners “to-do list” on a busy weekend – except this id for a nation of 300 million people, and for an entire year; and maybe, just maybe, it was the new seating arrangements, which not only blurred the partisan affiliation of the audience, but blunted their reaction to the speech, as well. Whatever the reason – the President’s State of the Union address was less than inspiring.

In fact, it would not be uncharitable to say it fell flat.

A State of the Union speech is assembled by a committee, the different agencies of government, the different interests among the public to whom the President wants to appeal, or to whom he owes a special thank you – and none of them are gathered in the same room to hear what the others have to say. It’s not a condition geared towards achieving excellence.

But last year’s speech was a solid effort.

This year’s speech was slightly shorter (about 300 words) than last year’s. But it seemed longer.

It may be that the new practice of having members of each party sit next to each other, diminished the enthusiasm, or the energy of the audience.

It may be, that sitting interspersed dilutes the effect of support for what the President is saying.

It occurs to me that the suggestion to mix up the seating came from one of the President’s own, now much reduced, party. Perhaps the idea was to distribute the President’s Democratic colleagues throughout the audience, and, in so doing, show more support throughout the House chamber than would otherwise have been exhibited. 

The problem seems to be that rather than distributing the President’s support more widely throughout the audience, it became diluted. If showing greater support was the intent, it was indeed a miscalculation.

As for the rhetoric of the speech itself, he appears to have abandoned the phrase “Let me be clear,” an expression which had become distressingly common in his earlier speeches. However, he still begins sentences with the word “And,” far too often. In this case, it was 49 times in 480 sentences. That’s more than 10 per cent of the time. The President, and his speech writers, can do better than that.

Finally, let’s talk about the catch-phrase of the speech “This is our Sputnik moment.” If you have doubts that this is the phrase the White House wanted to promote – go back and look at all the press coverage, just prior to, and just after the speech. Almost every outlet picked up on that phrase. 

Was that because it’s catchy, and has been on everyone’s lips in the days following the speech? No, it’s because the White House press office pushed it, thinking, or at least hoping, it would capture the public’s imagination.

Just one more miscalculation.

Length (words): 6945

Text Posted: The White House

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Ask Not

Speech By: John F. Kennedy

Date: January 20 1961

Location: U.S. Capitol

Occasion: Inaugural Address

Analysis:

We view this speech today through the long lense of half a century. That long perspective has done nothing to diminish its power.

Despite the pomp, ceremony, and celebration attendant with a Presidential inauguration, few inaugural speeches are memorable. Among that number we might include Roosevelt’s first, both of Lincoln’s, and, perhaps, Jefferson’s first. 

William Henry Harrison’s was memorable, but not for the reason’s he might have preferred. It was the longest, taking just over two hours to deliver outdoors on a cold, wet, March day. (Inauguration day was originally March 4.) He proceeded from there to serve the shortest term in office, just over 31 days, expiring from pneumonia and septicemia. While it is probably not true that “Old Tippecanoe’s” pneumonia resulted from his delivery of a two hour speech in inclement weather, it likely served as a warning to his successors.

Kennedy’s speech was reasonably brief, running only 14 minutes and 1364 words. So what, in this brief address, is so special?

For one thing, it is quite deliberately aimed at the whole world – not just the people he had just sworn an oath to govern. It might have been, in another setting a great foreign policy speech.

He is also clearly trying to dispel doubts, about whether he, the youngest man ever elected to the post, is up to the job. He does this by by creating an image of the historic forbears who created this great and mighty country he now leads – “For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.”

He then proceeds to outline the one great concern of his time: “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” There it is – in subtle but undoubted form – the one great fear of his nascent presidency, and the world at large. Nuclear war.

At that point, he issues one of the great rhetorical passages of the speech: “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans...” It conjures images of an ancient Greek messenger, tiring from his exertions, handing off the torch to the next runner, to light the way to the next city, so the message would not be delayed. What is particularly striking about this image is that the tradition of passing a torch is an invention of the modern Olympic Games, not the ancient ones. It dates back only to 1936!

Next he resorts to one of the most effective techniques of good speech writing – repetition. As we have discussed before, repetition serves the same purpose in a speech, as bullet points do on a piece of paper. It prepares the audience for each point the speaker wants to emphasize.

The phrase is “To those,” and it is an appeal to the world. To “old allies, new states, people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, sister republics south of our border, the United Nations, and finally, nations who would make themselves our adversary.”

To each of these is offered a pledge – save for that last, “nations who would make themselves our adversary.” To those he makes a request: “that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.” It is now nearly a quarter century since President Reagan’s speech in the shadow of the Berlin wall, led to a lessening of tensions between the world’s two great nuclear powers. It somehow seems alarmist to read the words of 50 years ago. But at the time, it was anything but – as the Cuban missile crisis would soon prove.

He again resorts to using repetition, with the phrase: “Let both sides.” It is a challenge to both sides – to use their power to advance the human condition rather than diminish it.

Near the end, he issues a phrase which sounds hauntingly reminiscent of Lincoln’s first inaugural: “In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.” In Lincoln’s version it sounds like this: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.”

Another haunting phrase from that paragraph is this: “The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.” It can’t help but escape notice that his own older brother would lie in just such a grave, had enough of his remains been recovered to bury, and, that he himself might have occupied such a grave, had things gone just a little worse that dark night in the Solomon Islands.

He expresses the resolve of his administration, and his nation, to defend freedom. Then it is on to the summation – the call to action. And a historic call it is.

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.”

It could have just as easily been – “Don’t ask what your country can do for you.” But that would not have offered the rhetorical flourish which makes the phrase so memorable. Not only that, there is a natural cadence to this phrasing that creates a dramatic pause after “Ask not,” that would have been otherwise lacking.

Video Posted: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Text Posted: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum 

From The Bully Pulpit – Tom

Reflection

Speech By: President BarackObama

Date: January 12, 2011

Location: University of Arizona

Occasion: Service for those shot in Tucson

Analysis:

No one wishes to be the bearer of bad news. In ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh generally had the messenger who brought unpleasant tidings executed. While it wasn’t exactly news at this point, President Obama’s speech in response to the criminal attacks in Tucson last weekend was a sad duty.

 It was also a chance to stand as leader of a nation shocked, and torn and seeking answers. He made the most of it. He begins by establishing that all important shared identification: “I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today,”

“I am one of you,” the President is assuring us, “We share this pain together.”

He speaks on behalf of the entire nation in wishing those who have suffered, and lost much, well. And he speaks openly, and unashamedly, of faith. This is not feigned or incongruous – for many of those who were victims of the attack were people of faith. Judge Roll, the President notes, was on his way back from Mass, which he attended every day. It may be of some comfort to his family, and those who share his obviously deep faith, that this was one of his final acts.

In turn, he speaks of each of the six deceased victims – telling a personal tale about each one. This is a well-researched speech.

Again he speaks for all of us: “Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken – and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness.”

Next he speaks of the living, and in particular, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords: “I have just come from the University Medical Center, just a mile from here, where our friend Gabby courageously fights to recover even as we speak.” Then he departs from his prepared text to announce something that just occurred during his visit to her hospital room. “She just opened her eyes for the first time since the shooting,” he reveals, and the crowd goes wild with applause. He is no longer speaking for all of us – but to all of us.

His speech has become a universal appeal to the country. Who among us does not want to see Gabrielle Giffords recover, or is not deeply pained at the loss of nine year-old Christina Taylor Green? He is erecting a big tent – seeking inclusiveness. This is a large country he leads, and he wants us all to be involved in a respectful manner: “at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

At a time when so many have used this horrific crime as an excuse to promote their own political agendas, even, in the most crass manner possible, do political fundraising, the closest the President comes to promoting a political agenda is this: “We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.” Is this a reference, perhaps, to stricter gun control? It gets no more specific than that. But the crowd erupted in sustained applause, so they certainly thought they knew what he meant.

He immediately returns to his role as leader of a great, if wounded, nation: “But what we can't do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility.”

Then, he calls on us to seek a higher purpose from this attack: “That process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions – that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires.”

Near the end, he is urging us on to higher calling: “I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.”

And: “If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost.”

He has risen above the sniping, and digging, and vicious calumny of standard political debate, and ascended to a new plane. Now he is asking his nation to join him at that high station.

Truly this is a superior speech at a time such is sorely needed. It would not be venturing too far afield to declare it the best of his Presidency.

Length (words): 2510

Text Posted: New York Times

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Two Roads Diverged

Speech By: Governor Andrew Cuomo
Title: State of the State
Date: January 5, 2011
Location: Convention Center - Albany
Analysis:

Much has been made of the Governor’s decision to change the location of the annual State of the State address from its traditional location, in the Assembly Chamber, to the state Convention Center. Well it should. It is a speech heavy in symbolism.

In making this change, he is making a dramatic statement – before one word has been uttered.

He is sending several important messages:

- That he is ready to exercise the full range of powers available to him as Governor.
- That he is looking to involve the public to a greater extent - the Convention Center holds at least twice as many people as the Assembly chamber (2,200 people, according to the Governor himself.).
- That he understands how to reach out to the public directly, and will do so when necessary.
- That at the same time, he is also willing to work with Legislative leaders, demonstrating this by giving Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a chance to address the crowd first.

This speech is different from the inaugural he gave last weekend. An inaugural is a statement of principles, a State of the State, an outline of policies.

This speech is designed to communicate a direction for the state, and the new Governor does so with flair. As if the new location were not symbolic enough, on the stage behind the podium, were seated 62 high school students from every county in the state. This is symbolic not only of greater public involvement, but that this speech is looking to the future.

He uses 82 projected slides to illustrate the major points of his speech. This is a first for this annual speech, something the Governor duly notes. Power Point can often take away from a speech. While the novelty value alone, adds something - particularly a touch of humor - these seemed to enhance it for the most part. This seemed particularly true for those I spoke to later who were in the live audience. It may have lost something for the television audience.

The first of the slides shows a road forking toward the top of the slide. Problems facing New York were listed at the bottom, then as the slides progress, the problems move off-screen on the left side of the fork. The solutions, which come next, take the right fork to exit.

There is much symbolism here. While the left side, which is the road the problems take, can be thought of as the liberal side, or wing, and the right fork the conservative, it might have another interpretation. In classical allusion, the left is the “sinister” side.

In either event, I think the problems were made to exit stage left for a reason.

He also used slides to great effect with a touch of humor, playing on the old phrase “Ships passing in the night.” He used it to illustrate how the budget negotiations between the Executive and both houses of the Legislature – represented by three ships – two representing the Senate and Assembly traveling in one direction, the much larger one representing his office headed on the opposite course, must not be like ships passing in the night.

While perhaps not a completely accurate representation, it was certainly good theater.

The new Governor did not completely abandon rhetorical convention for the comfort of power point. He uses those tried and true techniques of speech making, repetition of phrase, and shared identity:

“We have four principles that will guide our new government.

We want a government that pays for performance. No more blank checks.

We want a government that actually gets results in real time.

We want a government that puts the people first and not the special interests first.

We want a government that is an icon for integrity where New Yorkers can be proud of their government once again.”

One phrase in particular caught my attention: “New York has no future as the tax capitol of this nation.”

He ended his speech with great energy, and - this demonstrates the problems with power point – concluded in rousing fashion, speaking directly to the audience, looking directly at them, instead of turning to look at a projection screen. His energy seemed to rally the crowd, and that is usually the point of a concluding paragraph:

“Let this 234th legislature stand up and write a new page in the history book of New York State government. Let this 234th legislature solve these problems at a time of crisis and bring this state to a place that it’s never been. We’re not just going to build back we’re going to build back bigger stronger than ever before. That’s what we’re going to do together. Thank you and God bless you.”

If the point was – “It’s time to take a new direction” – it certainly came across.

Length (words): 5448

Text Posted: Albany Times Union

From The Bully Pulpit: - Tom

State of Politics

The Bully Pulpit got a mention last night from Liz Benjamin's State of Politics blog, so I thought I'd return the favor. For those of you interested in New York politics but unfamiliar with the State of Politics blog, it's one of the premier political blogs around.

Liz Benjamin is a top-notch reporter, with excellent sources all over the state! She also does duty as host of YNN's Capital Tonight - New York's only statewide political program. Thanks for the mention, Liz.

Op-ed Pieces

Call it “shameless self-promotion” if you must. But the op-ed piece I had published in the Albany Times Union this week, “Let's protect N.Y.'s water,” seemed  an appropriate topic for the blog.

“How’s that,” you say, “what does a speech to a room full of people, have in common with a short article opposite the editorials in a daily newspaper?”

Quite a lot, actually. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that there are similarities, so this seems a good time to examine them.

Op-ed pieces have much in common with speeches, but they are usually shorter, generally between 500 and 800 words, depending on the publication. They appear in the Viewpoints section of the newspaper, they express opinions, rather than being “hard news,” and need to have a clearly defined point of view.

Here’s what they have in common with speeches - both express opinion, and they share a similar structure. That structure consists of three main components:

Introduction – It’s a chance to establish audience identification with the topic. Lose this chance and you are likely to lose your audience as well. In an op-ed, this is called the “lede.”

Main Body – Carries the most important elements of the speech. This section should be developed step by step, in a logical or linear fashion.

This is the place to provide all the supporting information to bolster your arguments. Facts and figures are appropriate here.

Conclusion – This is the place to summarize what has been said. It’s also where to either issue, or restate a call for action. A good closing line is vital for a good speech just as for an op-ed, where this is known as a “kicker.”

As with a speech, research is vital to a good op-ed piece. This is where facts, figures, and other solid information build the case.

Newspapers generally look for certain elements in op-ed pieces:
The piece should focus on an issue of interest to readers of the newspaper. If the piece is related to a story that has already appeared in that publication, it indicates the paper’s editors have already judged that this issue is interesting to the paper’s readers. Another good technique is to develop a theme of topical concern - such as a public holiday, significant anniversaries, or comments on recently issued reports by some professional organization.

The author should have some special expertise or knowledge not generally available to the average reader. The writing should be concise. Concise is a term that varies from publication to publication, but it usually means something ranging between 500 and 800 words. That’s a major difference between a speech and an op-ed. If you’re asked to give a fifteen minute speech, no one will complain if go over that by a minute or two. If the paper’s limit is 650 words, believe it, and use a word counter to make sure.

There’s one other difference - a speaker is invited to give a speech. Most op-ed pieces are unsolicited.

If you can write an op-ed, you can certainly write a speech. The reverse may not be true.

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

Lobbyists

When asked by a reporter - “Would you be against lobbyists who are working for your program?,” President Harry Truman replied, “We probably wouldn’t call those people lobbyists. We would call them citizens working in the public interest.”

How a politician defines who is and who isn’t a lobbyist, is as likely to depend on where the lobbyist’s clients stand with regard to the politician’s own agenda, as any other factor.

So it should come as little surprise that President Obama devoted a significant portion of his Wall Street Reform speech to attacking lobbyists.

It’s a classic political strategy - don’t engage the opposition directly, find a convenient third party to attack. During the health care debate, his target was insurance companies.

Now, with a new battle joined, his speech resorts to military terms - “we have seen battalions of financial industry lobbyists descending on Capitol Hill, firms spending millions to influence the outcome of this debate.” Battalions! Indeed.

It’s an attempt to control the debate by controlling who takes part in the debate. So he demonizes lobbyists -  “despite the furious effort of industry lobbyists to shape this legislation to their special interests.” He frames the debate as being one between House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, versus the evil “special interests.”

Lobbyists are an easy target, because few people know what lobbyists actually do. More than that, few people realize lobbying - the right to petition for a redress of grievances- is the oldest right contained in the First Amendment. It dates back to the Magna Carta in 1215.

It is a right exercised on both sides of almost every issue. To match those who oppose new Wall Street regulations, there is another cadre who promotes them. What makes lobbying such an important right? It keeps the well-intentioned people in government, from doing things which have unintended consequences.

It’s what I call - A Right for a Reason.

So, will President Obama’s vitriol against lobbyists succeed? Perhaps we should look to history for the answer.

In the end - Harry Truman is remembered for many things. His attack on lobbyists is not one of them!

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

In The Shadows

Speech By:  President Barack Obama
Title: Wall Street Reform
Date: April 22, 2010
Location: Cooper Union
Text Posted: State of Politics Blog

Analysis:
Put simply - this was not one of the President’s more effective, or dynamic speeches. Given the pre-speech hype by the White House, and its importance to his legislative agenda - especially since the passage of health care failed to deliver a bounce in public opinion polls - one would have expected otherwise.

As the White House press pool report noted: “Apart from loud cheers and applause when the president walked in, the speech was heard in mostly silence apart from the flutter of camera shutters." This is more notable because a number of local politicians, most of them members of the President’s own party, were in the audience.

There really was not much memorable about this speech. No great catch phrases stand out. It was delivered without great passion, and received in like manner. It was as if the President had left his great oratorical skills, and truly, such they are, back in the Oval office.

In some sense, this speech was delivered amid long shadows. As he notes in the opening paragraph, Cooper Union is basically in the shadows of Wall Street. But other shadows are cast on the Great Hall at Cooper Union. Six future Presidents, and three incumbent Presidents have spoken from that stage. President Obama is the only one who falls into both categories. From that stage, an aspiring politician from Illinois gave the speech that would make him President - exactly a century and a half ago. Then, it was a lanky fellow who wore a stove-pipe hat.

Obama even refers to shadows as part of his speech: “these markets operated in the shadows of our economy,” and maintains his proposed reforms “would bring complex financial dealings out of the shadows;”.

Perhaps these shadows obscured the perspective of his speech writers. But this was not an outstanding effort to justify greater government involvement in an essential facet of the American economy.

Whether you support these reforms or oppose them; welcome greater government control over the finance industry, or abhor the very prospect; it is disappointing the President did not make a more forceful case for this key element in his legislative agenda.

One sentence in the next-to-last paragraph did garner my attention. “In the end, our system only works – our markets are only free – when there are basic safeguards that prevent abuse, that check excess, that ensure that it is more profitable to play by the rules than to game the system.” Yes it is a summation, but to my mind it should have been punched up, and inserted as the second paragraph. It could have been the pillar around which the rest of the speech was built. Instead, it meanders until it reaches this summing up paragraph, By that time, the potential power of the speech was lost.

He does spend three of his 30 paragraphs - ten percent - slamming lobbyists. That will be the topic of a separate Bully Pulpit post. Believe me.

Length (words): 2849

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Gettysburg

Speech By: Abraham Lincoln
Date: November 19, 1863
Location: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Occasion: Dedication of National Cemetery

The Bully Pulpit has already covered the Gettysburg Address. But, since it deservedly resides on Time’s list of Top Ten speeches, it is worth another review. Besides, there is always more to say about this magnificent speech - little appreciated, by those who first heard it.

It is important to consider the context of this speech. Obviously, it was part of the dedication ceremony for the new national cemetery, on the site of the largest battle ever fought on the North American continent. But so much more was at stake than that.

President Lincoln was facing re-election in less than a year. No nation in history had ever been able to host a free election amidst a civil war. His prospects for success in that re-election effort seemed dim. He would prevail in that election, but no one listening knew that.

The battle had occurred on Union soil, because the Army of Northern Virginia had the ability to invade, putting Washington itself at risk. With the lense of historical perspective, we know the South would never again be able to invade North. But those in the crowd did not know that.

After the war, it became obvious that Gettysburg was the battle from which the South could never recover. Its losses over those three days of battle had been too severe. But no one on either side yet knew that.

All those uncertainties which plagued those who heard the Gettysburg address, are no longer apparent to us, in the clear light of historical knowledge.

Lincoln not only sought to address these uncertainties, as well as to honor the dead whose final resting place was being dedicated that day, he had the higher object of inspiring his people on to final victory.

For the first two years of the war, Lincoln had steadfastly maintained the issue was over secession - not slavery. In late 1862 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect January 1, 1863. By November of that year, Lincoln, speaking at Gettysburg, no longer cast the bitter conflict between the states as a question of union versus secession, but as "a new birth of freedom." In his first sentence he pointed out the nation’s founding had been “dedicated to the proposition that all men are create equal.”

He proceeds with spare, yet masterfully descriptive language. He also uses classic speech techniques such as repetition, particularly in groups of three. “we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground.”

The phrase “we can not” serves the same purpose as bullets on a sheet of paper do for a reader - it warns of each important point that is about to be made. Notice also he uses “can not” as separate words rather than the more common cannot. The purpose is to make each syllable distinct as part of the emphasis.

As a final trick to capture the audience, Lincoln reverses the repetition technique in the final sentence, placing the repeated word at the end of each thought rather than at the beginning: “- and that government, of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Length (words): 267
Text Posted: Avalon Project - Gettysburg Address

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Supreme Colleagues

Speech By: Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg
Title:  Lighter Side of Life at the United States Supreme Court
Date: March 13, 2009
Location: New England Law, Boston
Length (words): 1756

In the wake of President Obama’s public excoriation of the Supreme Court during his State of the Union speech, Chief Justice Roberts waited until this week to issue his own very public reply. In a speech before the University at Alabama law school, Roberts answered a question about that moment from one of the students.

What he apparently found troubling was not the President taking issue with the opinion, “I have no problems with that.” Said the Chief Justice. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum.”

Intrigued, I went to the Supreme Court Web site, to see if I could find the speech itself posted. It wasn’t. Hopefully it will be in the near future. However, I did find posted there a delightful little talk by Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, at New England Law.

Entitled The Lighter Side of Life at the United States Supreme Court, it is a generous and revealing glimpse into how the court operates, both in legal and social terms. By generous, I mean Justice Ginsburg generously shares her insight into the collegial workings of the court, with her audience.

By generous, I also mean she is generous towards her colleagues on the court, even those who do not share her own legal philosophy. In talking about the fact there are sometimes “sharp differences” over certain issues on the court, she offers this observation: “But through it all, we remain good friends, people who respect each other, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. In recent terms, we have even managed to agree, unanimously, some 30 to 40 percent of the time. That contrasts with the Court’s 5-4 splits, which last term accounted for about 16 percent of the Court’s decisions. Our mutual respect is only momentarily touched, in most instances, by our sometimes strong disagreements on what the law is.” That unanimous agreement, 40 percent of the time, is something you seldom read about in the press. And it's actually quite remarkable, given the nine strong personalities, each with their own opinion, who occupy the Supreme Court's bench.

She goes on to add this important note about how she and her colleagues view their function: “All of us appreciate that the institution we serve is far more important than the particular individuals who compose the Court’s bench at any given time.”

While any Supreme Court Justice is likely to enjoy the rapt attention of any law school audience, her speech pays due attention to the essentials of a good speech. She engages her audience. “My aim is to describe not the Court’s heavy work, but the lighter side of life in our Marble Palace.”

She also avoids the “Ninth letter syndrome,” using "I" only 17 times, less than one percent of the time, while using the collective “we” and “our” almost twice that often. She is obviously working hard to establish a shared identification with her audience. This is an especially critical consideration in this case. When listening to a Supreme Court Justice speak, even a room full of lawyers must know that few, if any of them, will ever even be considered for elevation to such high station.

That Justice Ginsburg successfully navigates this chasm between her audience and herself, with grace, and a touch of gentle humor, is much to her credit. And, perhaps, her speech writer’s.

It is a speech heavy on the human side of the court, far less on the legal. I hope you will read, and, enjoy it, as I did.

And, if you want to know even more about how the court works, from the perspective of an insider, I highly recommend Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s book - The Supreme Court.

Text Posted: Supreme Court Web Site 

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Ending My Campaign

Speech By: David Paterson, Governor of New York
Title: Ending My Campaign
Date: February 26, 2010
Location: Governor’s Office, New York, NY
Occasion: Withdrawal from Campaign
Video Posted: YouTube - Azi Paybarah’s channel

Analysis:
There is a temptation to draw parallels between this speech, and President Lyndon Johnson’s March 1968 speech, in which he announced he would not run for re-election. But Johnson’s announcement was a surprise. This was not.

Forced by events to make an announcement everyone in the political world knew was coming, the Governor tried to put the best face possible on what he had to say.

In a previous post, we observed that a consideration the Governor brings to speech making is that he is legally blind. In an age when many politicians wouldn’t give their mailing address without a teleprompter, Governor Paterson pretty much memorizes what he has to say.

Added to the discomfort of being forced to end an election campaign that began only a week earlier, the difficulty of relying on memory was obvious here. For example, he used the speech as a form of valedictory address, claiming credit for accomplishments he felt deserving.

At one point, he said this: “I have lowered the playing field for minority and women owned businesses.” I suspect he actually meant “leveled the playing field.” Lowering the playing field wouldn’t do much to help people who needed it.

Later he says, “It hasn’t been the latest distraction, it has been an accumulation of obstacles that have obfuscated me from bringing my message to the public.” I think he meant to say “have obstructed me.” To obfuscate means to “confuse, bewilder or stupefy,” and I don’t believe he meant to say that was done to him.

We all have moments in our daily conversations where we search our memories for the right word and come up with something close, but not quite right. I suspect that happened here. It’s an example of why a carefully written speech is so helpful to a public speaker.

Few off-the-cuff speakers are as good as they like to think they are.

Then he announces what everyone already knew: “I am ending my campaign for Governor of the state of New York.”

I have one final observation to make - not as a speech writer, but as someone who has served as a news source for many publications for more than three decades. In the story that precipitated this speech, the New York Times reports: “The woman’s lawyer asked that she not be identified by name because she feared retaliation,” that means she was a confidential source. Yet, in the same story they report the name of the Governor’s aide she lived with for four years. Do they honestly think people can’t figure out who she is? The very next day, every other newspaper in New York had printed that woman’s name. It’s a cardinal sin of journalism for a newspaper to burn a confidential source. According to the Times' own report, they did that here.

Length (words): 811

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Super Speeches

Title: Win One For the Gipper
Speech By: Knute Rockne, Notre Dame Coach
Date: November 10, 1928
Location: Yankee Stadium
Occasion: Notre Dame vs. Army
Video Posted: YouTube (Hollywood version)
Analysis:
In recognition of this weekend’s final game of the professional football season, we turn our attention to football speeches.

Football lends itself to inspiring speeches. A well-timed, well-delivered speech by the coach, either before the coin-toss, or at halftime, can deliver the emotional jolt that benefits a football team in a way that would not work for a more dispassionate sport like baseball, with its far longer season.

Of the Top Ten Sports speeches named by Real Clear Sports last Summer, fully half were football related. The highest ranked among those was Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne’s “Win One For The Gipper” speech at the Notre Dame vs. Army game of 1928.

Army was a mighty team that season, coming in undefeated for the showdown at Yankee stadium, before 90,000 spectators. Notre Dame, fighting injuries to key players, had already lost twice. Searching for a way to inspire his seemingly overmatched team, Rockne gave the most famous pep talk in football history.

Invoking the memory of Notre Dame’s most famous player, George Gipp, who had died eight years earlier, of a streptococcus throat infection contracted on the field, Rockne tried to inspire his players. A scoreless tie at half time, Rockne’s speech propelled Notre Dame on to a surprise 12 - 6 victory.

A long and classic series, it was another Rockne team’s contest against Army four years earlier, that gave rise to a sports writer’s famous appellation. As Grantland Rice so famously penned it: “Outlined against a blue, gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.
In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.”

The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame rode on to an undefeated season, victory in the Rose Bowl, and the national championship.

Left halfback Jim Crowley went on to a coaching career, becoming head coach at Fordham University. There, he put together a dominating offensive line whose players were nicknamed the “Seven Blocks of Granite.”

One of those granite lineman was an undersized guard who also did some coaching after college. The trophy that will be awarded to the winning team on Sunday is named in his honor. The Lombardi trophy.

Text:
Rockne, who had been at Gipp´s bedside the night before his death, repeated the young athlete´s last wish to the team.

“I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy.”

Then he continued:

“The day before he died George Gipp asked me to wait until the situation seemed hopeless - then ask a Notre Dame team to go out and beat Army for him. This is the day, and you are the team.”

It was, and they were.

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

State of our Union

Speech By: President Obama
Title: State of the Union
Date: January 27, 2010
Location: House of Representatives
Occasion: Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution: “He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient;”
Length (words): 7237
Text Posted: White House Web site

Analysis:
A few years ago, a Republican Congressman speaking in prime time at his party’s national convention, made mention of George Washington as a signer of the Declaration of Independence. I was incensed! Only two signers went on to become President - John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and they both died the same day, July 4, 1826 - the 50th anniversary of Independence Day. George Washington had already taken command of the Continental army outside Boston by July 1776. A good political speech writer should know these things off the top of their head, and, if not, know where to look it up.

In my mind, the President made a similar gaffe last night, when he said:  “We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we're all created equal;” Sorry Mr. President - that notion was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Equal protection of the laws was finally amended, not enshrined, into the Constitution - on the 14th change!

I think a President simply has to get this right. It detracts from the speech not at all to cite the Declaration rather than the Constitution. Especially when you refer to it in a speech long in preparation.

It was a speech not only long in preparation, but long in duration. At 7,237 words, it took the President an hour an ten minutes to deliver. It seemed at the end, as if the audience, more than half of whom are from the President’s own party, had simply run out of the energy needed to applaud. The chamber seemed unnaturally silent during that last ten minutes or so.

As mentioned in the last post, the President has become so ubiquitous a figure behind the teleprompter, it has begun to work to his disadvantage. Certain standard catch-phrases appear so often in his remarks, they have become the point of ridicule. One of these is “Let me be clear.” Well, somebody must have been listening in the White House, that phrase appeared not even once last night.

At the same time, certain other remarked on tendencies did appear. The President refers to himself remarkably frequently, and this speech was no exception. He used the word “I” 78 times, and combined with other references to the first person for a total of 110 times, or 1.5% of the entire speech. He did, on the other hand use the collective “us, we, our,” about 2.5% of the time, but then again, it is the state of the “union,” it rather should be that way.

It is tradition that the side of Congress which belongs to the President’s party stands to applaud at salient points during the speech. On this night, both Democrats and Republicans stood to applaud the President’s remarks. It’s just that each side did so at different times during the speech.

His speech came at a time when real problems, of which we are all too well aware, meant he could not issue forth the traditional phrase - “The state of our union is strong.”

He made a couple of bombshell announcements - withdrawal from Iraq by August, and the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for the military. As Commander-in-chief he can do those things. But he also called for some other surprising things - a renewed national commitment to nuclear power, and to offshore oil drilling. That got a lot of support from the Republican side of the aisle.

He also spent an awful lot of time explaining how his administration has been so much better than the last one, which got a lot of support from the Democrat side of the aisle.

There was little in the way of memorable turns of phrase. But give him credit, the President continues to be a powerful and effective speaker. A little less of it this night would have been welcome.

If  pressed to award a letter grade, I’d give it a solid B, maybe a B plus. Definitely better than the Union is doing right now.

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

I Concede - Martha Coakley

Speech By: Martha Coakley - Senate Candidate
Title: I Concede
Date: January 19, 2010
Location: Boston Massachusetts
Occasion: Loss of Senate Special Election
Length (minutes): 8:21
Video Posted: YouTube
Background:
Martha Coakley wasn’t supposed to have to give this speech. Unfortunately for her, she did. Scott Brown did 66 public events, during the six week special election campaign, or, 11 a week. Coakley did just 19 events during the same stretch, or just over three a week. While she apparently recognized she would lose at the end, the personal disappointment of seeing a lofty goal denied because of some internal flaw - well, actually, that really is the stuff of ancient Greek tragedy.

Analysis:
Coakley’s remarks were prepared - she keeps looking down at the podium and moving something with her hands - which is always a good thing in a tough situation like this.

In my earlier post on concession speeches, I detailed the elements of a successful concession -

• Announce you have called the winner to concede, and wish that person luck in office.
• Thank your family. If your campaign has been at all active, it has truly put a burden on them.
• Thank your supporters for all their hard work.
• Mention how you much you appreciate the opportunity to represent your party, and to meet as many voters as you did.
• Say thank you once more, then leave the stage.

Although in a slightly different order, it’s a formula Coakley stuck to with little variation.

She starts out with a weak attempt at humor - “I don’t know, somebody told me there was a crowd out here.”

Then she goes immediately to the point of her talk - “I just got off the phone with Scott Brown and I’ve offered him my congratulations, and my best wishes on his victory tonight.”

Despite her obvious personal disappointment, she then shows a moment of true class - “I told him Mr. Brown, you’ve got two lovely daughters, which he does.”

With only this slight variation from the formula I suggested, she thanks her supporters first - “You poured your hearts and souls into this campaign. I want to say an incredibly sincere thank you.”

Next she turns - literally - to thank the family standing up there with her, husband Tom, her sisters, and nieces and nephews. She talks about Tom’s hard work on the campaign trail, and, in a very human aside, about the family members who couldn’t really comprehend what the campaign was about, their two dogs.

She then offers thanks to a few very special volunteers in her campaign, President Obama, Former President Clinton, and a very personal thank you to Vicki Kennedy, widow of the Senator whose seat Coakley had hoped to win.

Finally, she gets to the fourth element of the formula, talking about the ideas and issues she campaigned on, and which are philosophical underpinnings of her party. She talks about meeting voters who share those views.

Then, if there is any failure in her concession, she blows the conclusion. She quotes from the final passage of the most famous speech of the man whose seat she had hoped to assume. That it was his concession speech, in the only race he ever lost, makes the failure more telling.

She quotes it this way - “We will always remember our terrific Senator Ted Kennedy and his words - the work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.”

If this is the failure of the speech writer, then that person should be ashamed. There are far too many sources readily available on the internet where the correct language is posted. I have seen them.

Perhaps though, it was just the failure of mist-clouded eyes to properly read what had correctly been transcribed. I’d like to think that’s what it was.

For the record, here’s how Senator Ted Kennedy ended his only concession speech:
“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.
For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”


From The Bully Pulpit - Tom