Barack Obama
June 29, 2009 by Jerry
From his stunning upset victory in the Iowa Caucuses at the start of the presidential primaries, throughout the election campaign, and in the first hundred days of his term in office, the media treated Barack Obama like a rock star and handled him with kid gloves. He acknowledged as much when he spoke at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner earlier this month. “Why bother hanging out with celebrities when I can spend time with the people who made me one?” he said with a broad smile, and then added, “I know where my bread is buttered.” But less
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May 13, 2009 by Jerry
A recent Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle had as its theme, “Roughly Speaking,” which played out in answers of words containing either “er” or “um.” When spoken, those two sounds are known as “fillers” or “unwords,” because they have no meaning. Unwords are the bane of any speaker’s existence because they produce a perception of uncertainty. Barack Obama, whose superior speaking skills undoubtedly contributed to his ascent to the presidency, is known to lapse into unwords whenever he departs from his trusty teleprompter and speaks extemporaneously—as in a press conference. This lapse has drawn much spoofing, much of it
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May 4, 2009 by Jerry
Listening is a social skill that is rapidly becoming extinct in the 21st Century, a subject I wrote about in a March blog, saying, “For those people who still retain a semblance of politeness, it has become waiting for one’s turn to speak; for those who no longer bother, it has become not to listen at all, but to talk past the next person.” This rude behavior is merely annoying in social circles, but can be destructive in the more mission critical circumstances of business and politics. One of the most common instances of not listening comes in response to
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March 27, 2009 by Jerry
In January and March, I wrote about President Obama’s artful use of the word “you,” the most persuasive word in the language—according to a purported Yale University study. Purported or not, “you” is an essential element in any communication, because it implies the “co-” in “communication,” the two-way exchange that is necessary for results to take place. Those earlier posts traced the president’s use of “you” throughout his campaign, in his Inaugural Address, and in his first address to congress. Yesterday, in his first ever (for any president) internet town hall meeting, Barack Obama was back at it. He kicked
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March 25, 2009 by Jerry
Last night, President Obama held his second prime time press conference. One of the first media reactions came from John King, CNN’s Chief National Correspondent, who said, “He spoke for 50 minutes plus. The words ‘Iraq’ were never spoken. There are more than 140,000 troops there; the war hit the six-year anniversary this week. He never mentioned the word ‘Afghanistan.’ There are thousands of U.S. troops there. He never mentioned Osama bin Laden. He never mentioned terrorism. You want to talk about a sea change from George W. Bush to Barack Obama.” King was referring to Bush’s repeated use of
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March 12, 2009 by Jerry
In last month’s post “Obama Gets Drama,” I wrote about our new president’s first departure from his “No Drama Obama” nickname, the epithet he had earned for his uncanny ability to stay calm and collected during the very rough and tumble election campaign. The departure came when he showed his frustration during an impromptu speech to House Democrats after his economic stimulus package had run into the initial heavy Republican opposition. There was actually an earlier incident in which Obama let his emotions show, and it came the day after his soaring Inaugural Address. Vice President Joe Biden was about
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March 10, 2009 by Jerry
Last week was Teleprompter Week. It began with a continuation of the wave of negative reviews, including mine, of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s disastrous “teleprompted” speech. If I may be immodest for a moment, only mine focused on how the use of a single teleprompter unit contributed to Jindal’s forced speaking style. The teleprompter story then shifted from Jindal to Obama with comprehensive pieces by Peter Baker of the New York Times, Carol E. Lee, a White House reporter of Politico.com, and Dan Spencer of Examiner.com. Baker and Lee gave balanced and through reports, but Spencer, a self-proclaimed “Right Side
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March 5, 2009 by Jerry
In my previous post, “Obama & You,” I described how, during his pursuit of the presidency, Barack Obama, in order to involve his potential voters, consciously shifted from speaking about himself to speaking about his audiences, the electorate. Shifting from “I” to “you” or its variation, “your,” he deployed the word extensively on his website, in his campaign materials, and especially, throughout his speeches. Tracking Obama’s word usage from candidate to president demonstrates a further shift in his focus. In his historic Inaugural Address, he used “you” only 15 times, but said “us,” 23 times, “we” 62 times, and “our”
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March 4, 2009 by Jerry
With the nation reeling from a deepening recession, Barack Obama’s task in his first speech to a joint session of Congress was very much like that of a rookie football coach giving a half-time pep talk to a team trailing by a wide margin. The political pundits equated Obama’s challenge to that of Sir Winston Churchill addressing his nation enduring the heavy bombardment by the German Wehrmacht, or of Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing his nation mired in a depression, or even of George W. Bush addressing his nation devastated by the 9/ll attacks. Each of those leaders delivered a powerful
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February 11, 2009 by Jerry
Our new president’s first press conference got two thumbs down from the press. Alessandra Stanley, who regularly reviews television for the New York Times, and Walter Shapiro, who has covered the last eight presidential elections, found the president long-winded. Ms. Stanley wrote, “Mr. Obama’s locutions are steady, fluent and often very long. On Monday night, even his fiercest warnings about the perilous state of the economy were bracketed by professorial disquisitions.” In The New Republic, Shapiro wrote that, with his “lengthy soliloquies…Obama radiated the sense of a leader who has digested too many economic briefings and memorized too many talking
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