Writing Tools

I have been thinking a lot in this election season of a remark I heard Norman Mailer make at the Nieman Narrative Conference in the months before his death. He said, in essence, that a leader, especially a president, should be judged by his use and abuse of language. No one should be surprised that such a thought would come from a critic of the president and a man of letters.

The context of Mailer's critique was, from his point of view, the failed presidency of George W. Bush. Whatever one thinks of President Bush, few would argue that he is a wordsmith or an orator.  His communication skills are, by reputation, more effective in small informal gatherings. He knows how to slap a back and whisper in an ear.

But I do think there is a legitimate case to be made that the problems of this administration were magnified by the president's inability to capture -- in language -- the imagination of the American people. Even in the darkest shadows of 9/11, there were no stirring calls for sacrifice or inspiring visions of what victory over terrorism would look like, just a bullhorn and photo ops on the deck of a battleship.

In researching this essay, I stumbled upon a website called American Rhetoric, which contains a listing of the 100 greatest speeches of the 20th Century. (In most cases you can read a text or hear the speech as it was first delivered.) There are, of course, speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights leaders, along with oratory from several presidents and vice presidents. I sampled these and came away with one overpowering impression: The most effective presidents were, by far, the best orators. 

 

Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan rank high above their colleagues. They were all great communicators who could deliver memorable phrases and raise the hopes and dreams of professional politicians and common citizens alike. Add to this list the names of earlier presidents, especially Washington and Lincoln, and Brits such as Churchill, and I am tempted to agree with Mailer that great leadership and great language go hand in hand.

I don't know anything about the oratorical skills of Millard Fillmore, but I know that other flawed presidents were weak orators and communicators. In spite of the famous "Checkers Speech" that saved his political hide in 1952, Richard Nixon's words always seemed burdened by their own five o'clock shadow. Jimmy Carter seemed too spare and unlyrical, a mortal sin for a Southerner. Bill Clinton was much better, but could never turn prolixity into a virtue. The first Bush sounded like he was sipping tea; LBJ as if he were swilling gin.

As for Warren G. Harding, H.L. Mencken noted, "He wrote the worst English I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abyss of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

Poet E.E. Cummings kicked Harding when he was down, way down: "The only man, woman, or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead."

All this helps explain the political attacks upon Barack Obama's oratory and writing skills. Coming from both Democratic and Republican opponents, these attacks qualify as a form of linguistic Swiftboating, which is to say they seek to reframe an obvious strength into a pronounced weakness. Blended together they sound something like this: "Barack Obama is a bright young man who knows how to deliver inspiring speeches in big stadiums in front of adoring supporters. Flowery words and high ideals from a self-anointed savior are all well and good, but they are no substitute for experience, plain talk, and problem solving."

It's rhetoric used to attack rhetoric.

There is a long tradition of both oratorical excess and plain language in America that is described as far back as Alexis de Tocqueville's chronicles. Harry Truman and now John McCain have turned straight talk, the language of the common man, into a virtue. George W. Bush has tried a similar approach but is so verbally impaired -- and so often satirized -- that he'll probably share a place in history with Harding.

 

The attack on Obama's oratory derives in part from a long tradition of anti-intellectualism in American cultural thought. On the level of the street, smart African-American boys often receive criticism from their peers if they are caught acting or talking "white." Higher up the social ladder Obama's eloquence is being interpreted as "uppity" elitism and patronizing alienation. Gang bangers and Junior League Republicans make strange bedfellows.

All political candidates should be held accountable for their language. Words –- and how they are delivered –- matter more than ever, especially in a post-literate, text-messaging society. Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, Ford, Bush 41, Clinton would all have been more effective presidents if they had been better writers and more gifted orators.

Try this: Spend a little time on the American Rhetoric Web site, reading and listening to famous speeches delivered by previous American presidents. Decide for yourself who the great speakers are and how their eloquence, or lack of it, influenced their records as leaders. Use that knowledge as a filter for all the political rhetoric you here from now until election day.