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.

Spare Words

Speech By: Andrew Cuomo

Date: January 1, 2011

Location: New York State Capitol

Occasion: Inaugural

Analysis:

It was an inaugural celebration befitting the times – spare, austere even. Yet that does not mean the words of the inaugural address need be spare. After all, they place no added burden on the public purse.

But these words are indeed spare, for all that there are many of them. The speech itself runs more than 3,500 words. It is plain-spoken with few passages that depend on rhetorical flourishes.

Not only is Andrew Cuomo the first son of a New York Governor to also hold that office, the first Governor Cuomo was a renowned speaker. It can’t be a comfortable feeling to know that there will inevitably be comparisons. Yet, to be a leader in a democracy, public speaking is an essential demand of the job.

The new Governor seems to meet this challenge by concentrating on his plain-spoken approach. “My attitude will be constructive impatience with the status quo of Albany.”

This doesn’t mean he abandons all resort to rhetorical convention. For example, he uses repetition to emphasize his points: “New York faces a deficit, a deficit that we talk about all day long: the budget deficit, the budget deficit. But it’s actually worse. The state faces a budget deficit and a competence deficit and an integrity deficit and a trust deficit. And those are the obstacles we really face.”

He also demonstrates a distinct change of tone from the inaugural address of the last Governor elected to the post. Where Eliot Spitzer was smug and insulting, Cuomo is gracious and complimentary of others. He makes it clear he is seeking to work cooperatively, not run roughshod over everyone: “because in truth the partnership between the Executive and the Legislature has not been working well for years and that must change.”

He regularly resorts to the phrase “My friends.” It’s a way to establish that all-important shared identity with the audience.

It is not a great speech, it is workmanlike. Then again that’s exactly the tone he seems to be setting: “We know what needs to be done. We have known, in truth, what needs to be done for many, many years. What we have to do this time is we actually have to do it,”

Our new Governor did use the occasion to announce a radical departure from the security measures of recent years: “And today, my friends, we will reopen the Capitol, literally and figuratively. We will remove the barriers on State Street so the tour buses can return once again. We will be opening up the second floor, the Governor’s floor, so the members of the public will once again have access to their government.”

I remember getting on the elevator in the Capitol and riding next to the first Governor Cuomo. You had the opportunity to talk. Just chit-chat, mostly, but if more was called for the opportunity was there. Sadly that was not possible with the last three Governors. It’s nice to think it will be again.

Length (words): 3520

Text Posted: Governor Andrew Cuomo

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Infamy

Speech By:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Title:
Asking Congress to Declare War

Date:
December 8, 1941

Location:
House of Representatives

Occasion:
Response to Pearl Harbor

Analysis:
No great leader commits his nation to war without just cause. People will die. Treasure must be expended. And the outcome is never certain.

But possessing just cause is not sufficient - communicating that justification to the people who will do the fighting, and the world, is essential. That is what President Roosevelt does here in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The speech is short - only 500 words - and to the point. But what points he makes.

He begins with a phrase so prophetic, it is regularly replayed on the anniversary of the attack: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

Notice he calls it a “date.” The word “day” would have been equally correct, but the word he chose seems to convey more meaning.

He then goes on to relate news everybody listening knew - that the United States was at peace when the attack occurred. But then, in plain language, he outlines exactly how much preparation had to have taken place for such an attack to succeed. Without ever abandoning the studied language of a senior government official, he makes it plain to the whole world - “this was a sneak attack,” is what he conveys - without ever using those precise words.

Next, much as Jefferson did in the Declaration of Independence, he lists the points of American grievance against this foreign tormenter. Roosevelt also uses a tried and true speech technique to emphasize these points - the repeated phrase.

“Last night Japanese forces attacked,” he repeats, each time listing a place where the Japanese military had struck - Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island, and, for good measure, Midway Island that very morning.

He then asserts his position as leader of his wounded nation. Perilous times call for strong leadership, and that’s what he intends to provide. “As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.”

Finally, as with every good speech, he sums up with a call to action: “I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.”

Even the most casual student of history knows what happened next.

Historical Note - Only one member of Congress failed to heed the President’s call for a declaration of war - Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Rankin had been the first woman ever elected to Congress, in 1916 - four years before the 19th amendment mandated woman’s suffrage for every state in the country (Montana already had it.). A lifelong pacifist, Rankin refused to vote for the United States’ entry into World War I. A year later she lost a primary for a Senate seat, in large part because of that vote. She was out of elected office until again being elected to Congress in 1940. Facing certain defeat as a result of her refusal to vote for the resolution to enter World War II, she did not run for re-election. She never held elected office again.

Length (words): 500

Text Posted: American Rhetoric

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

Speaking Dangerously

They have become a standard member of the audience at political speeches - the “tracker.” The opposition sends a staffer equipped with a video camera to record a politician speaking at public events. If the speaker says something unwise, it is recorded for distribution to political blogs and social media outlets.

It’s a practice which tripped up Senator George Allen, leading to his unexpected defeat, after he used the term “macaca” to describe the tracker shadowing him, a term interpreted as a racial slur. With a US Senator as a victim, the practice has been energized. In fact, the Democratic National Committee set up a Web site this year, asking volunteers to send in video, looking for the next “macaca” moment.

With the advent of economical and easy to transport video cameras, and the proliferation of social media sites and political blogs to distribute the results, “trackers” following political candidates at public events have become ubiquitous.

For every candidate, the danger is that something will be said “off message,” creating an issue that was not intended. These can cause a distraction, or worse, even sink the campaign. It’s one reason why creating a standard stump speech, and deviating little from it, is such a good idea.

But this year, a new aspect to the tracker dilemma surfaced in a hotly contested Congressional race in upstate New York, where Chris Gibson was challenging incumbent Scott Murphy. At one campaign stop, the tracker following Gibson around recorded an off-hand comment, although not made by Gibson or his staff. The Murphy campaign then promoted it to the political blogs.

As described by Politico’s Maggie Haberman:
Gibson talked to the crowd about Murphy being for "big government" and sending people to tape him, saying, "What do you think he thinks of your privacy? You trust a guy like that with your guns?"
People in the crowd said, "No!" and Gibson, a former military man, replied, "I'm just asking."
Then a man off to Gibson's left but out of the frame yelled out, "I trust him with my bullet!"
Gibson looked in that direction after the man said it, without saying anything.

Well, here’s the first problem - we don’t actually know which direction the comment came from, because the person making it is off camera. So we don’t know that Gibson looked in that direction, just that he looked around the room after making his own point - something good speakers do anyway.

Before posting the video sent over by the Murphy campaign, Maggie got this reaction from Gibson’s staff:
I emailed Gibson aide Dan Odescalchi the video and asked if the nominee had heard the remark or had any reaction to it, and he claimed he hadn't, saying, "Chris never heard the comment from the audience. Chris was using a microphone and PA system in the front of the room. Chris would obviously never condone any violence of any kind. In this country we settle differences at the ballot box."

Here’s the second problem with this - the Murphy campaign was trying to make their opponent responsible for someone else’s words, even though Gibson never acknowledged the comment, and certainly never said he agreed with it. It’s an attempt at good old-fashioned guilt by association, even though no association has actually been established.

There’s a third problem with this, and the aspect I find most troubling - who is the person who shouted the comment? We don’t know.* He could well be a plant sent by the Murphy campaign for the express purpose of shouting out a comment that could be used by Murphy to try and embarrass his opponent. Murphy had already sent one paid staffer to the event, the tracker, whose job was to try and record something embarrassing. Why not send two? And, who would know? Even the tracker could be kept in the dark on this.

Guilt by association is always a tenuous connection. But shouldn’t we be sure there’s actually some association in the first place?

Not only that, the original mistake can be compounded, because political bloggers tend to link to each other’s posts - particularly in their morning and evening news roundups.

An incident like this raises an additional question for the political bloggers - especially those associated with well-known media outlets such as newspapers, or which aspire to journalistic objectivity, rather than partisan political opinion. Does a video like this actually show what those promoting say it does? And, even if it does, has it been staged in a way that would be tough for anyone else to detect.

My suspicion is the media, and political speakers they cover, will have to wrestle with this last question on an increasingly frequent basis over the next few years - years of speaking dangerously.

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom

* Full Disclosure - I have known Chris Gibson for about a dozen years, and have done a small amount of work on his campaign this year. I also know the tracker who recorded the event. A fellow Tae Kwon Do black belt, he and I trained together for several years at the same dho jhang - in Chris Gibson’s home town of Kinderhook. Oh, and I know Maggie Haberman, and have, on occasion, contributed items used in her political blog (No, I won’t tell you which ones, and neither will she!).

A Speaker's Blunder

A single speech created a major controversy in the race for Governor of New York this week. Drafted by a Brooklyn Rabbi, and delivered by a Buffalo candidate, it conveyed some harsh opinions about homosexuals.

Few campaign speeches gather much notice. Most are given to small groups of people, with little fanfare, and for the most part, are designed to please as many people as possible.

So, how did Carl Paladino wind up in a firestorm, then pour gasoline on it, then make things worse by disavowing something he never should have said in the first place - angering those who agreed with his original remarks? It begins with his speechwriter!

As it turns out, Mr. Paladino does not normally use prepared speeches. That’s always a mistake, especially for a statewide candidate venturing out into territories where he is not well known. Yes, the local town Supervisor probably can speak off the top of his head in front of the local Lion’s Club. It’s a friendly situation, and probably everyone there knows each other. On a larger stage - say, the third largest state in the country, a little more preparation is called for.

To compound this lack of preparation, the speech Mr. Paladino did give in Brooklyn last weekend wasn’t written by his staff - people who share his goals, but by a local Rabbi, Yehuda Levin, who had his own political agenda to promote.

A speechwriter is tasked with crafting the words that convey the speaker’s beliefs. Often, the writer and speaker share the same beliefs, but it is not necessary that they do.

But whatever beliefs are expressed in a drafted speech, they must convey what the speaker wants to convey. Not only in terms of the speaker’s beliefs, but also in terms of the speaker’s goals. It is the writer’s duty to know what those are, and put them down in appropriate language so the audience will come away knowing what they are.

Prior to addressing the group in Brooklyn, Rabbi Levin handed Paladino the speech he had drafted for the occasion. Apparently, Paladino did some cursory editing, removing some passages that even he found uncomfortable (imagine how offensive those must have been), then gave that speech to a group of people he did not know. The result - a small forest consumed to produce the newsprint used in reporting the aftermath, along with enough blog posts to keep Google’s search engines occupied until election day.

If you’re not willing to stand by the things you’ve said in your speech - and in the end, Paladino was not so willing - then you shouldn’t be saying them.

It calls to mind a more general problem in the political world. Too many political candidates, having worked their way up from the Lion’s Club circuit, believe they are better at speaking off the top of their head. They seldom are. I know, I’ve listened to far too many of them.

Here’s a suggestion for every politician. Sit down and write a stump speech - a general speech about the problems your community, district, county, state, whatever - is facing, and the solutions you have to offer. Show it to a few people you trust to give an honest opinion - not your spouse - and hone it. Learn the basic points and a few solid lines, rather than memorize it.

In six months, repeat the process. That’s how fast the political world changes.

Better yet - hire a speech writer from your campaign account. For the cost of a few television spots, you can get some solid help. For Carl Paladino, it’s going to take thousands of television spots to undo the damage from one “free” speech.

And even they are unlikely to help.

From The Bully Pulpit - Tom