January 26, 2009 – 11:28 am
I don’t know this for a fact, but I think it’s rare for Shakespeare’s Macbeth to be mentioned twice in the same day in the Wall Street Journal. But today is such a day.
One reference is in this article (registration may be required) about this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. The meeting’s tone will be less triumphant with regard to capitalism, according to the Journal; more focused on figuring out what went wrong – and who’s to blame.
Among the entertainments at the meeting, “Richard Olivier, son of the late British actor Sir Laurence Olivier … will give a dinner talk on business leadership at Davos, based on Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. The tale shows a heroic soldier turned bad, led to self-delusion by his own ambition and greed – think Lehman Brothers, says Mr. Olivier.”
Then Nathan Koppel’s exploration of the law firm Heller Ehrman’s collapse includes this nugget about internal deliberations: “At a 2006 retreat in New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel, [firm chairman Matthew] Larrabee argued that London was a vital outpost for any firm with global ambitions. But Heller had lost money in Asia for years, and lawyers were skeptical that a big London office could be profitable.
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January 26, 2009 – 10:21 am
Last week, a distinguished British blogger took issue with a January 19th posting in which I said that, “Inaugural addresses invariably remind us of America’s historically unmatched commitment to popular sovereignty and individual liberty…” I’d like to respond.
The blogger was Max Atkinson and his challenge is here.
As he wrote:
My point is not to criticize the particular form of democracy and freedom that’s been developed in the USA. Nor is it to claim that we in the UK (or any other European country) have a come up with an even better version of democracy. But it is to register a complaint about this implicit criticism of other countries’ democracy and freedom that’s so regularly trotted out by American politicians.
By way of background, Atkinson is a former Oxford professor of anthropology. In the 1980s he became interested in how audiences respond to speakers. He focused first on analyzing structures of language that trigger applause. This interest led him ultimately to leaving academia and becoming a highly successful consultant on public presentation. His clients are political and corporate leaders, primarily in the UK and Europe. He has written two excellent books on speechwriting and presentation development, most recently Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need To Know About Speeches And Presentations (published in the US by Oxford University Press, 2005).
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January 25, 2009 – 9:23 pm
For those of you who like your political messages in limited-verbiage poster form, Paste magazine offers this handy tool. It allows you to upload any photo (one you’ve taken or one you download) and turn it into one of those iconic blue and red offset prints from the Obama campaign. At left: My recent creation in homage to another contributor.
If you’re really impressed with your handiwork – or someone else’s – you can have it printed on a poster, t-shirt, mug, or other item you’ll soon regret buying.
One note of caution: This site, like so many other cool corners of the Internet, has the potential to become an addictive timewaster.
January 25, 2009 – 3:38 pm
In an earlier post, I mentioned the trouble comedians were having coming up with a funny trope to use to poke fun at President Obama. The experts’ conclusion seems to be that Vice President Biden is the fattest target for humor in the Administration.
Now we see the story developing further. It’s not just Biden, see, but Obama’s reaction to Biden that is becoming a reliable comic routine. In this scenario, Barack Obama is Joe Biden’s straight man.
It’s promising. As this Politico clip of segments from “The Daily Show” and “The Tonight Show” makes clear, watching the habitually on-message president react to Biden’s howitzer-in-a-hurricane rhetorical style is pretty funny. And it offers the hint of a crack in Obama’s cool public face.
January 24, 2009 – 1:10 pm
At the risk of talking ancient history, I want to return to Tuesday’s inaugural address and dispute a criticism of it, or more accurately, dispute the criticism’s relevance in assessing the speech’s quality —the criticism that it included no memorable phrases.
Can you think of any memorable phrase coming from President Obama in his two years of campaigning? Not, “Yes, we can,” which is memorable thanks only to mind-numbing repetition. But don’t limit the question to the new president. Other than “Axis of Evil” and “Compassionate Conservatism”, what memorable phrases came from George W. Bush during his presidency. And other than “Mend it, don’t end it,” which, like “Yes, we can”, is remembered because he said it so often, and setting aside defensive dissembling during self-induced dramas (I am trying to be delicate here), how about from President Clinton?
My point is that contemporary presidents — politicians generally — no longer speak in memorable phrases. Certainly nothing comparable to “Evil Empire”, “Go ahead, make my day”, or “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” — only few of President Reagan’s many arresting formulations, formulations that themselves changed the course of events and that his speechwriters served up almost weekly… or that he extemporized when the staff failed to deliver.
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January 24, 2009 – 12:52 pm
Last week I had the pleasure of appearing on a Brookings Institution panel devoted to the implications of President Obama’s inaugural address for U.S. foreign policy. Many of the questions my co-panelists Michael Gerson, Michael Fullilove, Carlos Pascual and I received had to do with signals being sent (or not) to specific countries and governments around the world, and how deliberately a president and his speechwriting team craft the wording of those messages.
This article in today’s Washington Post captures one of the communication challenges any president faces: His words are scrutinized and analyzed not only for what they say, but also for what they omit. Reflecting on the way President Obama’s recent remarks on the Middle East were interpreted by key stakeholders, Glenn Kessler reports that Israeli officials and Jewish groups were delighted that President Obama did not mention the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, former Palestinian Authority adviser Diana Bhutto was disappointed to hear President Obama call for “a future of hope” for the Palestinians; she argued that American officials promise other oppressed peoples “freedom.”
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January 23, 2009 – 12:06 pm
News that former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was dumped from Bank of America yesterday capped a remarkably tone-deaf period in Thain’s otherwise successful ascent of the Wall Street ladder. After being brought in to restore confidence in Merrill in 2007, and then hailed as a shareholder savior when he arranged Merrill’s sale to BofA a few months ago, Thain is this week’s poster child for bad public relations.
Reports yesterday that Thain spent more than a million dollars redecorating his office last year – including the gem that he spent $1,400 on a trash can – reinforced the idea that bank chiefs lived like kings and spent like drunken sailors. And it brought further attention to the multi-million dollar bonus Thain sought from Merrill/BofA even as executives at other banks were forgoing bonuses entirely (not to mention the millions of Americans who last year lost jobs that paid far less than your average CEO’s salary).
The big lesson here seems to be: Don’t believe your own press. Just because you’re hailed as a hero one day doesn’t mean you’ve become immune to the normal laws of public perception.
Barack Obama also had a PR come-to-Jesus yesterday when the press, as reported in Politico, began to question the level of access they were given to the president’s first actions in office. Pooling Obama’s second swearing-in and only releasing White House photos of his first hours in the Oval Office may not seem like a big deal, but to the press, whose livelihood depends on access, it’s worrisome.
Any American who lived through last year knows that President Obama has a somewhat charmed relationship with the press. But maintaining those good relations – and the accompanying positive public perception – requires consistent effort.
January 22, 2009 – 10:24 am
On day 1 (or 2, depending on how you count), President Obama took action on a few items that were regularly highlighted in his campaign rhetoric: Guantanamo, lobbying, and open government. He also made a decision that’s responsive to the times: freezing the pay of top White House employees.
All of the orders send positive messages to the people who supported the president in the campaign. He moved swiftly to carry out actions they voted for. Whether they’ll have any practical effect is less certain.
President Obama’s decision to freeze all Guantanamo prosecutions for 120 days to review each case allowed him to take action without really having to take action. Today may be different. The Washington Post reports that Obama today will issue an order for the prison to be closed within a year, which will begin a process of frantic review and negotiation with countries around the world who want as little to do with the people held at Guantanamo as we do. I suspect the Administration is already figuring out that the Bush Administration was no more enamored of Guantanamo than anyone else – they just recognized that it was a necessary solution to an immediate problem.
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January 22, 2009 – 9:19 am
Wait, what’s that lump in my back? Should I call the doctor? Let me feel around back there . . . There seems to be a long, ridged boney protrusion in the middle of my back, rising from my hips, up the length of my torso, into
my brain. Could it be a spine?
Oh yes, I remember now. I am a vertebrate. I have a backbone.
I used to be well aware of this fact until I was swept along with everyone else during the Obamanagural. I don’t regret having done so. Chalk it up to Aretha. That moment, however, is over.
Reminding me of what we have to defend is Robert Ehrlich, Jr., former governor of Maryland, in a brilliant counter-take in The Washington Post on the Inaugural Address and what it portends for free speech, honest union elections and economic fairness.
Read this all inveterate vertebrates.
January 21, 2009 – 11:48 am
As Vinca did, I also cruised around the new whitehouse.gov shortly after noon yesterday. The Obama team looks poised to do some interesting things with the site, most of which I probably won’t understand. But one old-fashioned thing seems to be missing: Any evidence that the last eight years happened.
Throughout the Bush Administration the White House web site was a repository of past presidential speeches, statements, announcements, and anything else the Administration made public. I’m sure these things still exist, but where can we find them?
It would be great if the Obama White House web site could, at least for a few weeks, provide a link to the wealth of information on the last eight years that seems to have temporarily vanished.
January 21, 2009 – 10:44 am
Reaction to President Obama’s inaugural address has been fairly tempered in the 22 hours since it was delivered. Aside from Mark and Clark, no one seems to think it was a home run. Few seem to think it will be memorable in and of itself – apart from the reality of Obama’s place in history.
Part of the president’s problem may be expectations. Given Obama’s demonstrated skill as an orator, set against the backdrop of his rather less skillful predecessor, people expect Cicero – or Martin Luther King – every time he steps up to the podium.
Of course, there’s not much Obama can do about that, short of tanking a few speeches to lower the bar. And that might seem inauthentic.
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January 21, 2009 – 10:15 am
In his inaugural address, President Obama spoke with force and depth – and went far to confirm himself as more than the winner of an election, but as the leader of the entire country.
In broad strokes he did what every president does in his first speech on entering office: He reaffirmed the American experience and the national purpose. He recalled the major themes that brought him to office, reviewed actions he plans to take in his administration’s early months and affirmed confidence about the future and the American people’s ability to meet any challenge.
But both through his person and his words, he spoke for a renewed national unity as few in our time could.
Part of that renewed unity had to do, of course, with the African-American experience. He touched on this history several times – glancingly and in passing, rather than head-on and at length.
For example, in arguing for America’s role in “ushering in a new era of [global] peace,” he said the nation could help others transcend old hatreds because it had “tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united.”
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January 20, 2009 – 5:21 pm
Listening to President Obama’s magnificent Inaugural address today, I am struck by his ability to hit on what every American craves out of Washington—a willingness to put work before politics.
“On this day,” he said, “we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for too long have strangled our politics.”
It was also impressive that President Obama made a point of stressing that programs that do not work should not be continued, and that an educational system that does not serve children must be overhauled. That is a concession from the ideological left that is sure to evoke cooperation and reciprocal serious rethinking by the right. It is the strategy of a man serious about breaking boundaries and moving the country forward.
We should also remember how rare such moments are in American politics. Twenty years ago, George H.W. Bush began his presidency with these words, “To my friends — and yes, I do mean friends — in the loyal opposition — and yes, I mean loyal: I put out my hand. I am putting out my hand to you, Mr. Speaker. I am putting out my hand to you, Mr. Majority Leader.”
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January 20, 2009 – 4:15 pm
We already knew that President Obama would author a new chapter in presidential communication. Beyond his personal writing talents and his signature speaking style, he and his team have made the most of new technologies to spread his message — with the result that the clock has been turned back on the soundbite-ization of America; now interested citizens can check out presidential speeches in their entirety on the Internet. And they do.
That spirit of openness is reflected in the brand spanking new White House website — launched within moments of President Obama’s inauguration — which includes not only the usual press room and executive bios but also a White House blog, and a page where visitors can interact with the Office of Public Liaison.
Director of New Media Macon Phillips says their efforts will center on communication, transparency, and participation. Looks like they’re off to a promising start.
January 20, 2009 – 12:29 pm
So the moment has passed; the address is delivered. It will be remembered, probably not as one of the best, but certainly as one of the most consequential. Everyone will take their own piece of it with them. Here’s what I took.
The most heart-stirring line, coming near the end of the speech, captured the day: “This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed … why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”
A statement that I think will resonate with Americans these days – a post-partisan statement if ever there was one: “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.”
And the call to Americans that formed the speech’s theme: “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”
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