Classic Edition: Video Killed the Rhetoric Star

Poking through the archives to find some old physics posts to fill space while I’m away from the keyboard, I realize that back in 2002, I wrote a lot more about politics than I do now.This is largely because most of what I wrote about politics back then makes me cringe now. And, in fact, made me cringe about two weeks after writing it, which continues to be true of most of my writing about politics.

Here’s one of the rare posts that doesn’t make me cringe (I’m not entirely happy with it, but it’s not completely embarassing), on the subject of political rhetoric (which seems vaguely appropriate as Fourth of July weekend filler. This dates from August of 2002 (the original is here, and you can scroll down to see me lose my temper…).

(Note: the first two links have rotted, but you don’t really need them to understand the rest of the post.)

Matthew Yglesias notes that the one-year-later Sept. 11 memorial will feature a reading of the Gettysburg Address (and also the Declaration of Independence, which is sort of an odd choice, as after the ringing “we hold these truths” preamble, it’s mostly a laundry list of grievances, and hardly the stuff of inspiring oratory). Matthew asks:

Of course, not every speech can be the Gettysburg Address, but is it really too much to ask that we not just totally give up an America as a possible source of great oratory? Don’t we have a duty to add to the total stock of commemorative words? Was 9/11 not a big enough deal to be worth the effort of someone trying to come up with some new text? I say give it a shot.

The problem is that oratory pretty much is dead, and has been for many years now.

When I was in grad school, just outside Washington, DC, we used to get a lot of foreign post-docs in the lab, and at some point, they always got a tour of the big memorials downtown. There’s nothing to drive home the mealy-mouthed inadequacy of modern political rhetoric like standing in the middle of the Jefferson Memorial and looking up at the words that ring the dome:

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

If there’s a sentence that better deserves to be carved in marble, I can’t think of it. Granted, that’s from a letter, not a speech, and Jefferson was a bit of a nut, but has there been any statement from an American President in the last three or four decades a tenth as ringing and unequivocal?

Then there’s the Lincoln Memorial, whose walls are covered with text from great speeches, most prominently the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. Again, this is brilliant stuff:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

(This bit would be at least as appropriate for the 9/11 memorial as the Gettysburg Address, by the way…)

No President in the television era has managed anything to match this. Part of the problem is that television itself changes the game– there are things you do when speaking to a large crowd that just don’t work on tv. You can see a little of it in the annual Kabuki drama of the State of the Union address– frequent pauses for applause, etc.– but even there, it’s played for the camera.

When people are going to hear the words once, and maybe see them written down, you need to work hard on crafting the phrases to be especially memorable, so that they roll off the tongue and stick in the mind when spoken, but also look good on the printed page. (Or even when it’s incompetently read– I’ve heard more stammering high school students mumble through the Gettysburg Address than I care to remember, but even haltingly read with no flair at all, there’s an undeniable power to the words.) The appearance of the speaker is completely unimportant, since very few people will see him during the speech.

On tv, traditional oratory takes on a certain William Shatner quality. When the speech is broadcast to a nation on television, it’s important to look sincere, and not as critical to orate in a classical sense– indeed, it’s better to avoid the suspenseful pauses and other tricks that good speakers use, as they look overdone, and overly ornate phrases sound stiff and theatrical. The lack of memorable phrasing can be made up in smarmy delivery and sheer repetition, as clips get played over and over.

This is why Clinton was effective as a speaker. His words were nothing all that special, but he had a certain oily charm, and could carry off mediocre material through his huge repertoire of (often parodied) gestures and facial expressions. His speeches were deadly dull to read, chock-full of policy-wonk material as they were, but nobody read the speeches, they watched them on tv, and the combination of phony sincerity and folksy Ol’ Bubba was a killer.

Reagan’s another example. For my money, the most memorable thing he ever aid was the opening to a campaign stop in Binghamton, NY in 1984, when he began with the immortal words:

It’s good to be here in Bimmington, Bingington, Binhampton– It’s good to be here!

He was no great orator, though there were occasional flashes of good stuff, but he worked very well on tv. In person, on a distant stage, you couldn’t escape his occasional tendency to mumble, and the occasional lapse into complete incoherence, but on tv, he came across as America’s Grandpa– a kindly old gent, maybe not all there, but if you’re nice to him, he’ll give you candy. People ate that up, the same way they ate up Clinton’s Bubba routine.

The other problem crippling oratory in the television era is the sheer frequency of broadcasts. You can already see a bit of this in the FDR memorial, where there are at least twice as many quotes cut into the walls as for any of the other greats. He did stump speeches, he did addresses to Congress, he did “fireside chats,” he did addresses to the nation via radio, and all of it was recorded for posterity. When you’re giving only a couple of major speeches in a year, you need to make them count. When your every word, and every gesture is picked up for broadcast, you make it up on volume. You don’t need to hit a home run every time you get up to bat, but in rhetoric, unlike baseball, the occasional homer is lost in a sea of singles and sacrifice flies. FDR was very good, but even he was starting to suffer a sort of dilution of rhetoric.

Kennedy is the ragged edge of political oratory. He figured out most of the tricks to be effective on television, but tv hadn’t yet come to completely dominate the political landscape. He had some pretty good moments– “Ask not what your country can do for you” is smarmy but effective, and the “Ich bin ein jelly doughnut” speech is cornball in the very best way. After Kennedy, it’s pretty much a desert, oratory-wise. Good speakers still come along, but they tend to be fringe figures– Jesse Jackson is the best example. The man’s a nut, in political terms, but man, can he give a speech. There’s nothing to beat that preacher-man routine in terms of giving a stirring speech, these days, but it’s a mixed bag on tv. Still, I’d pay to hear Jesse Jackson read Green Eggs and Ham before I’d take money to listen to Bill Clinton read the Gettysburg Address.

It’s been a long time since we had good political oratory with any regularity. The only post-Kennedy speech that really stands out in my mind as deserving to be carved in marble is King’s “I Have a Dream” speech (feel free to suggest others in the comments section). You just don’t get lines like:

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man

from politicians any more. Some humorless atheist would take offense at the “altar of God” bit, and a foreign policy advisor would object that the Saudis might be offended at the “every form of tyranny” bit, so couldn’t we water it down a bit, and a political consultant would point out that there’s nothing there for the swing states, and… And Jefferson would bludgeon the lot of them with a copy of the collected works of John Locke.

Returning to Matthew’s original point, though, does the death of political oratory excuse the lack of an attempt to “add to the total stock of commemorative words?” No, not at all. The occasion deserves at least an attempt at rhetorical grandeur (though given the list of politicians who will be involved, it’s hard to imagine that nobody will give it a go). I just wouldn’t hold out any hope for a success to compare to the Gettysburg Address.