An articulate disagreement with your political ideas still disagrees with your principles, even if entertaining to hear.
A great danger of successful political rhetoric is confusing skill in expression with the ideas being expressed. Any communicator should fear the danger of substituting polish for content. He or she should read constantly and engage in the examination of core principles as often as possible to escape mental stagnation.
This danger is much on my mind for three reasons. First, as a communicator I am constantly trying to replenish my stock of ideas to avoid it. Second, two great writers I am reading at present warn of rhetoric replacing reality . . . both of them more skillful communicators than I shall ever be: Shakespeare and Trollope. Finally, since communicating has become so easy to us, there is an even greater premium on facility of communication.
When anybody can have their say, somebody who says things really well can cut through the clutter with even greater force. If everybody tried playing basketball every week, they would have an even greater appreciation of the skill and sheer talent of a really fine player.With a constant opportunity to express our opinions, a great communicator is even more greatly appreciated.
Fashions change in politics rhetoric, but humanity does not. One of the gifts of the particular kind of genius that belongs to the great writer is the ability to discover that unchanging core. Since genius is rare, the rest of us must work hard to find the wise men and women of each age and try to learn what they have observed about us.
I have discovered more wisdom about contemporary politics in Shakespeare’s history plays (such as Richard II) than in the New York Times editorial page . . . ever. A danger of the very effective education United States culture gives our best students in vocational subjects is that we will be ineffective in pointing them toward this enduring wisdom.
Since it comes wrapped in the diction and popular manner of expression of another era is not, for most students, as immediately entertaining or as relevant. One goal for all the writers of this site has been to try to point to some of the wisdom we have found by reading this great authors.
In his magnificent conclusion to his parliamentary series, Anthony Trollope describes the man of rhetoric well:
Sir Timothy was a fluent speaker, and when there was nothing to be said was possessed of a great plenty of words. And he was gifted with that peculiar power which enables a man to have the last word in every encounter,—a power which we are apt to call repartee, which is in truth the readiness which come from continual practice. You shall meet two men of whom you shall know the one to be endowed with the brilliancy of true genius, and the other to be possessed of but moderate parts, and shall find the former never able to hold his awn against the latter. In a debate, the man of moderate parts will seem to be greater than the man of genius. But this skill of tongue, this glibness of speech is hardly an affair of intellect at all. It is—as is style to the writer,—not the wares which he has to take to market, but the vehicle in which they may be carried. Of what avail to you is it to have filled granaries with corn if you cannot get your corn to the consumer? Now Sir Timothy was a great vehicle, but he had not in truth much corn to send. He could turn a laugh against an adversary;—no man better.
Television has made the situation, if anything, worse. Glib writers can hand attractive people scripts to read via a teleprompter that give the appearance of superficiality without the skill. The writers themselves are usually only glib . . . good at getting the corn to market without much corn. . . but now the person we watch is not even superficially talented. Too often he or she is only good at appearing to be glib . . . so shallow that shallowness appears deep.
I once watched some of the talking head newsreaders at FOX attempt unscripted banter. It was not just inarticulate and shallow, but utterly unlike the way they sound the minute the script begins again. They were, male and female, created by writers . . . they had no corn themselves and no skill in carrying corn . . . but they looked, evidently, like people we might enjoy watching carry corn if they had some and could do so.
They were good at faking faking it.
Fortunately, all three presidential candidates are more substantial. Both McCain and Clinton are in no danger of rhetorical skill overwhelming their message. Senator Obama is a man of substance with great skill. There is no Sir Timothy in this bunch.
However, there is a danger that Senator Obama’s skill with words combined with substance will strike us as so rare that we will overlook the substance. In an age when a newsreader who actually reports the news can seem an intellectual giant, a politician who writes his own speeches, reads his own books, and has thoughts and can express them competently may overwhelm our common sense.
Senator Obama is a conventional, even fairly radical, liberal. If that is your political fancy, then he is an excellent candidate. However, if you believe in the culture of life, if you support historic American ideas about the family, then his ideas are bad. Senator Obama has cultivated the ability of saying what he disagrees with so well, that you forget he is attacking your view.
His power in articulating a pro-life position in order to gently disagree with it is of little comfort to infants who suffer the partial birth abortion he would make legal.
So if Senator Obama is no Sir Timothy, not just the reader of a teleprompter, we run the risk of so valuing the skills of a Sir Timothy that we forget his ideas. That is to devalue what is most interesting, and from my perspective most dangerous, about Senator Obama.
All of us are impressed with the messenger, now what of the message?
All of are impressed with the general message (change! hope! unity!), but must we ignore the devils in the details (socialized medicine, foreign policy incoherence)?
If one is a liberal, then it makes sense to vote for Senator Obama . . . or Senator Clinton. My worry, such as it is, is addressed to those willing to overlook the mildew on the corn, much of it brought of Carter era storage, for the brand new wagon in which it is being hauled.
In the end, we will have to eat the corn, not the wagon. . . be governed by the policies and not the rhetoric. Of course, all things being equal, we would get good policy and good delivery, but sadly an Abraham Lincoln, a Theodore Roosevelt, or a Ronald Reagan is rare. In most cases, we must be satisfied with a man of substance and feel blessed one is available!