Once More Into The Breach, Dear Friends

[poliphilo]

Kerry doesn't make eye contact. The arm movements are stiff. He bounces about behind the podium like the Swedish chef.

Bush has a more natural stage presence, but when he speaks he seems only inches away from panic and collapse. He talks gibberish and flunks his punch-lines.

Few public figures have any talent for public speaking. I find it odd. You'd think it was a core skill and that they'd work at it.

Look at the Queen. We pay her millions to open things and make gracious speeches, but she's as rubbish at it now as she was fifty years ago; no empathy, no wit, no warmth. She's been doing it for a life-time and she still puts on the reading glasses and hides behind a script.

When a real communicator comes along- a Churchill, a Reagan, a Clinton- we're amazed. O look, a politician who's good at the job, a leader who can lead. What a prodigy!

Comments

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Do they still call you "subjects?" To me, there would be nothing more demeaning on this Earth. That's a term of feudal inferiority so infuriating I'd make it a point to sign everything with my title as "Citizen." Even if I was elected to Parliament, even when being formally introduced (if I attended a function that required it) I'd have myelf introduced as "MP, Citizen." Sic semper tyrannus.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, we are still "subjects". It makes me furious. My default line on royalty- which I repeat so often that I run the risk of becoming a bore- is that the Russians had the right idea. Take 'em all down into the cellar and- rat-a-tat-tat!