February 6, 2009 – 4:27 pm
Keeping an audience’s attention is the top goal of every speaker. Be relevant, be engaging, be funny, be scary, be theatrical – the list of recommendations goes on and on. What doesn’t usually appear on the list: Unleash bugs on the audience. Bill Gates used this last technique to great effect in his talk at this […]
February 6, 2009 – 4:12 pm
John Adams may have had really terrible teeth (at least as portrayed in the excellent HBO miniseries by Paul Giamatti), but he was a powerful orator, in part because he took seriously his famous observation that “facts are stubborn things.” The full quote is: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our […]
February 6, 2009 – 3:51 pm
I agree with Ed, but it doesn’t seem to me the Republicans are being obstructionist or even appearing that way, despite the President’s efforts to convey that impression. They’re not just standing athwart the stimulus bill saying “No,” they’re providing alternatives which might actually have a stimulatory effect and – another plus – seem to […]
February 6, 2009 – 1:02 pm
The power of the podium was in evidence this morning as President Obama announced his new team of economic recovery advisors. The president jumped on today’s dismal labor report to urge action on a stimulus bill. He also got in a few lashes at obstructionists in the Senate. While he did not identify Republicans explicitly, […]
February 5, 2009 – 9:14 pm
One of speechwriters’ tools of the trade is economy of expression — not choosing a four-syllable word when a two-syllable one will do; not larding up a phrase with adverbs when a single tough verb would suffice; not taking an entire paragraph to express a sentence’s worth of ideas. (And some might say, not using […]
February 5, 2009 – 8:05 pm
The first job of a president is to establish strength — that he is a player to be reckoned with in the Washington power game. Different presidents have done this in different ways. Reagan’s handling of the air traffic controller strike is the most widely cited. But at some point, the forces in this city […]
February 5, 2009 – 6:22 pm
Maybe I’m just used to hearing President Bush talk about Iraq all the time, but it seems like President Obama has been awfully quiet about Iraq’s provincial elections. To recap, on Saturday Iraq undertook what have to be considered spectacularly violence-free elections for provincial councils across the country. Prime Minister Maliki, once written off by […]
February 5, 2009 – 1:25 pm
Obama’s warning yesterday that failure to act quickly on the stimulus “will turn crisis into a catastrophe” demonstrates both the President’s great strengths as a communicator and what may well become his fatal flaw. First the strengths: I don’t know who writes this stuff, Obama himself, his ace speechwriter, or some symbiotic combination of the […]
February 5, 2009 – 10:24 am
Former vice president Dick Cheney sat with Politico for a wide ranging interview earlier this week, going on the record more forcefully than I expected to see just two weeks after the new team’s inauguration. Cheney asserted that the Bush Administration’s controversial post-9/11 security policies were responsible for preventing attacks on the United States, and suggested that in […]
February 4, 2009 – 2:53 pm
The AP recently examined President Obama’s efforts to shift away from the phrase “War on Terror”: Since taking office less than two weeks ago, President Barack Obama has talked broadly of the “enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism.” Another time it was an “ongoing struggle.” He has pledged to “go after” extremists and “win this […]
February 4, 2009 – 11:37 am
Mark was not impressed with newly appointed Senator Roland Burris’ first remarks on the Senate floor, primarily because the focus of the Senator’s statement was an enthusiastic endorsement of Eric Holder. But leaving our own opinions of the new attorney general aside, I think it’s worth noting the way Senator Burris opened his remarks — […]
February 4, 2009 – 11:35 am
I don’t want to be nitpicky, but I think it’s important to set the record straight on an issue that frequently gets misremembered, including in Thomas Daly’s post earlier this morning. I’ve written before about how “Mission Accomplished” became a message nightmare for the Bush Administration. But it’s important to note that “Mission Accomplished” was […]
February 4, 2009 – 10:10 am
By Thomas Daly, Guest Contributor It was so refreshing to hear the president yesterday. No big press conference, no convoluted statement just when talking about the Tom Daschle appointment for health secretary in an interview he said, “I screwed up”. I was so excited by this. Not by the fact that he “screwed up.” But […]
February 3, 2009 – 10:47 pm
Tuesday afternoon President Obama tackled head-on the question of who’s to blame for the problems surrounding some of his nominees, including Tom Daschle. “I think I messed up,” the president told Katie Couric. “I screwed up in not recognizing the perception that … ordinary people are out there paying taxes every day and whether it’s […]
February 3, 2009 – 5:52 pm
With Tom Daschle now a victim of, among other things, his unreported use of a car and driver over the last few years, this video is making the rounds and getting laughs.
