little bits of me: Eloquence

7.16.2004

Eloquence

Tony Blair has a touch of it. George W. Bush does not.

Bush speaks in seven-second sound bites, repeating the same mantra over and over and over. For Bush, eloquence is any mantra that rhymes: something catchy that people can hang on to. It doesn't have to contain complete truths either or really say anything concrete for that matter. I try to imagine a 35 minute speech by him, consisting of 175 seven-second sound bites and start to yawn. The repetition must be painful. No wonder so many Americans are confused. The world for Bush is simple and his message too. Simple enough, in fact, to be communicated along the side of the road like Burma Shave.

Tony Blair, on the other hand, seems far more capable in connecting with people on a level deeper than that reptilian level addressed by GW Bush. His sentence structure is more complex and the ideas put forward, though similar to Bush, are conveyed at a higher level. His cadence is fluid and he doesn't seem uncomfortable with the words he uses, particularly those with more than two syllables.

So, my point? Not much really. Bush and Blair both used rhetoric and mantra's to sell a war to the world and continue to use the same techniques in an attempt to keep the war sold. What Bush lacked in eloquence he made up for in repetition. Blair was along for the ride and used his own verbal skills to secure his end of the bargain. Both of these men have blood on their hands and the root of much of their evil is summed up in a most eloquently written article, by JK Galbraith. To be fair, the whole article isn't exactly eloquent, in fact it has some very awkward paragraphs, but the last three paragraphs struck a chord with me and for that reason alone I recommend reading it.

posted by jmd ¶ Friday, July 16, 2004

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