US State of The Union Speech

[achtungbaby]

Originally posted by rakovlam@Jan 29 2003, 09:46 AM
Yeah, could of been you, right?

Please refrain from making snotty remarks. You have been warned.

[Shuriken]

Originally posted by rakovlam@Jan 29 2003, 05:46 PM
Yeah, could of been you, right?

No, it couldn't have been any of us because none of us have fathers who used to be President of the United States...

[rakovlam]

No, it couldn't have been any of us because none of us have fathers who used to be President of the United States...

Neither does 41 of the 43 presidents. So what the hell is your point?

[VV o n g B a]

Originally posted by rakovlam@Feb 3 2003, 02:30 PM
Neither does 41 of the 43 presidents. So what the hell is your point?

well, the 41st DID have a dad that was a senator.

but republicans are certainly not the only ones that have gotten public office jobs by family ties.

[kangal]

but republicans are certainly not the only ones that have gotten public office jobs by family ties.

Thank you. I thought the speech was pretty good as he went outside the box by talking about the homeless issue and alternative energy ideas. It was good in that it surprised opponents. I'm not one to say that Bush is smart, but he's got some smart advisors.

[kangal]

Oh, and yes, I did vote for Bush and support him. Flame on kids =)

[himura-dono]

ok, from the man who is putting us another 300+ billion in debt, next year alone, i dun think so. my class was let out early so we could watch the texan give it, but uh, i chose to do something else...wc3.

[applehead]

Originally posted by tazadar@Jan 28 2003, 01:44 PM
Probably not. It's painful to watch Bush speak. He struggles with every word that comes out of his mouth. We can expect the kind of things he will say - mostly sell to the nation the need to invade Iraq. Military forces are there and ready to invade now.

i so agree with you and shuriken.
as the president of the county of which i'm a citizen of.
i do feel that i should at least have a bit of respect for this man.
but i think that got shot to shit
when pictures of him started floating around the internet
next to pictures of curious george.
now everytime i see bush... i see curious george.
eerie resemblence.

and the fact that he isn't the greatest public speaker.
it doesn't motivate me enough to listen to an already boring speech.

[kangal]

out of curiosity....who do you consider a great speaker?

[VV o n g B a]

Originally posted by kangal@Feb 3 2003, 08:31 PM
out of curiosity....who do you consider a great speaker?

rumsfeld. even tho i disagree with the guy, he's a confident and articulate speaker.

[Shuriken]

Originally posted by rakovlam@Feb 3 2003, 08:30 PM
Neither does 41 of the 43 presidents. So what the hell is your point?

My point is that Bush does not seem to have made it on his own. With his low SAT scores, he was rejected by the University of Texas and only got into Yale because his father and grandfather went there. He proceded to squander his time at some of America's most prestigious learning centers — and boasted about it once he became president. Afterwards, he used his name and his father's influence to enter into a series of business ventures (which he probably would not have been able to get into if his last name hadn't been Bush), all of which either failed or underperformed spectacularly. Indeed, his first truly successful career was as Governor of Texas, a job that's arguably less important in a practical, hands-on sense than Lietenant Governor of the state.

While he campaigned for president, it seemed to me that his embarrassingly inarticulate, even garbled manner of speaking had to be explained and excused by conservative pundits. Every time Bush said something like "Is our children learning?" or "Families is where wings take dream," some talking head would burst onto the TV and tell us that this gibberish made him closer to the "regular" people than Al Gore. One op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times even defended his calling a New York Times columnist an "asshole" — the sophomorism was self-evident, but a Republican apologist had to explain it away and make it sound like a mature statement of principle. For the life of me, I can't imagine a Democrat getting away with this kind of misspeaking: I'm sure that if a Democrat had mangled and malaproped the language the way that George W. Bush did, he'd have been considered a laughingstock and not made it past the primaries.

Finally, Bush lost the popular vote, and he owed his election victory in Florida to the vote-counting being handled by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who was the co-chair of his election campaign in that state. And need I remind anyone that the Governor of Florida is Bush's brother, Jeb? If a Democrat had won a disputed victory in a state where the vote-counting was overseen by an official from his election campaign and where the candidate's brother was governor, Republicans — at the very least — would pronounce the results suspicious and probably demand that hearings be held on the outcome. And, of course, the Florida vote-count was stopped by five conservative justices on the Supreme Court, all of whom were chosen or elevated by Bush's father and his Republican predecessor.

In short, I do not think that Bush, unlike Bill Clinton, could have had the "careers" that he did and have become President of the United States all on his own talents and merits, without the benefit of his family name and family contacts (and I would say the same of John F. Kennedy — though JFK was far and away a better speaker and appeared infinitely more intelligent). That the hell is my point...

[kangal]

In short, I do not think that Bush, unlike Bill Clinton, could have had the "careers" that he did and have become President of the United States all on his own talents and merits, without the benefit of his family name and family contacts (and I would say the same of John F. Kennedy

Speaking of JFk......just to point out that he also barely won the election.....and I'm not going to begin to tallk about his own "talents and merits" without his family name. I'm sure many recall that his father Joe Kennedy, essentially bought the Massachusetts Senate seat for him. I just think its all conjecture on whether Bush may have succeeded without his name or not. It is interesting to note that Bush did make a 1205, which is not horrible. In fact, Gore made a 1355, which is not that much higher than Bush's. And, Gore did fail out of divinity school and quit law school. Slick Willie WAS a Rhodes Scholar, and I respect that.

[applehead]

Originally posted by kangal@Feb 3 2003, 06:31 PM
out of curiosity....who do you consider a great speaker?

well to pick someone fairly recent
i felt that bill clinton was pretty good.
he had charisma and charm. (monica!!, lol)
something i feel that bush lacks.

[achtungbaby]

Originally posted by VV o n g B a@Feb 3 2003, 07:22 PM
rumsfeld. even tho i disagree with the guy, he's a confident and articulate speaker.

Rumsfeld is indeed articulate but I don't know if I'd go so far as to call him a great speaker. Articulation, I think, is one of the bare bones necessities for good speaking skills. IMHO, he comes off a little too hawkish.

Great oratory skills, I think, are a combination of the technical aspects (eye contact, clear voice, yada yada), the words spoken, and then the part you can't really teach: passion.

Dubyah is a horrible speaker. His best speech was probably right after 9/11, when he stood at Ground Zero speaking to relief workers (one of the rare moments when Dubyah was really able to inspire *something* in people, and a moment his handlers made sure to replay over and over in commercials). His father, I think, was much better with the plain spoken approach. His 1988 RNC "thousand points of light" was one of the better speeches of the last 10 or 20 so years. His television address to convince the nation to go to war against Iraq before the Gulf War was also pretty damn good.

I'd like to see Gore speak now. He seems a lot more relaxed, laid back, and attempting to shed that whole robot image. The only time I've ever seen Gore speak passionately about anything is on the environment, when he goes off.

And in response to Shuriken's comments re: the Florida recount -- if Bush had been the incumbent, with the full arsenal of the Oval Office at his disposal, the strength of a phenomenal economic record under his belt, and the best damn campaigner in the country in his corner, I would have said the same thing to him: he didn't deserve to win. It sounds silly, as sophomoric as rooting for the underdog in some college football game, but such is the stuff of presidential electioneering. During the recount, I would argue, Gore never inspired in the public that he was, without a doubt, the winner of the election. From the morning after the convention, the Bush team's media blitz to convey Dubyah as more presidential was invaluable.

[VV o n g B a]

Originally posted by achtungbaby@Feb 4 2003, 02:11 AM
Rumsfeld is indeed articulate but I don't know if I'd go so far as to call him a great speaker.  Articulation, I think, is one of the bare bones necessities for good speaking skills.  IMHO, he comes off a little too hawkish.

true. he's never inspired me or anything. i was just using him as an example to placate kangal. b/c he'd find some reason to tear down any democratic speaker that was presented. ;)

*edit: how about churchill? even through the crackly old radio recordings, u feel some of the gravitas he had.