The President's Speech Is Missing...

Nick Gillespie | January 30, 2006

...well, more like unfinished like the Sistine Chapel. It'll be done when it's done, reports The New York Times in this profile of William McGurn, the Bush admin hand charged with crossing the i's and dotting the t's:

"He'll say, 'Get it out, it doesn't follow,' " Mr. McGurn said. The president, never known for his elocution, does have clear ideas of how a speech should sound -- no fat, no repetition, no meandering. "He's not big on anecdote," Mr. McGurn said. "He really wants to make it on an argument."

Whole thing here.

Incidentally, McGurn penned the excellent--and heartbreaking--1994 Reason story, "A Tale of Two Countries: Hong Kong, the Philippines, and protectionism's human toll", which reveaed the stupid policies that led to so many mothers from the Philippines working as domestics in Hong Kong.

Comments

|1.30.06 @ 3:10PM|#

"He's not big on anecdote," Mr. McGurn said. "He really wants to make it on an argument."

Perhaps so, but the question is, does he know what those words mean?

|1.30.06 @ 3:18PM|#

"the question is, does he know what those words mean?"

Bush allegedly reads the Nicomachean Ethics for use in composing speeches:

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/14/bush.htm

|1.30.06 @ 3:26PM|#

Come on guys, chop chop. National news outlets are anxious to post reviews of the speech before it actually happens.

|1.30.06 @ 3:46PM|#

From the article linked by SR:

On the flight from Washington, Bridgeland told reporters that Bush drew his speech, his second and last commencement address of this season, from writings and teachings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Pope John Paul II, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Cicero and, finally, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

I can imagine Bridgeland trying to keep a straight face as he said this, and then the explosion of laughter by the reporters when he finished. It is, after all, absolutely hilarious.

|1.30.06 @ 4:13PM|#

Emily Dickinson? huh?

Does GWB have a repressed Massachussets gal inside him, yearning to be free? This Dickinson peom seems appropriate:

Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit,--Life!

|1.30.06 @ 4:18PM|#

"Emily Dickinson? huh?"

Actually, that's more believable than some of the others. Apparently most (if not all) of Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas": http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/dickinson.html

|1.30.06 @ 4:24PM|#

SR,
I did not know that. I wonder if he has nicknames for his favorite writers. Emmy, Stotty, JP Deuce, et cetera, et cetera.

|1.30.06 @ 5:43PM|#

"Emmy" and "JP Deuce" I get, but "Stotty"?

|1.30.06 @ 5:57PM|#

Nicomachean Ethics, huh? A quote from A Fish Called Wanda seems appropriate:
"Apes don't read philosophy."
"Yes, they do, Otto. They just don't understand it."

Stephen Macklin|1.30.06 @ 6:44PM|#

Oh how the media would scream if they didn't release the text of the speech before it was given.

I hope the do it. The frothing indignation would be amusing beyond belief.

Stephen Macklin|1.30.06 @ 6:45PM|#

Plus it would provide evidence that could actually keep something secret.

|1.30.06 @ 9:04PM|#

You know, Bush needs someone to tell him that Reagan's success as a speaker was largely due to his ability to relate some nice, juicy anecdotes.

Number 6, great quote--I love that movie.

Yogi|1.30.06 @ 11:52PM|#

no repetition

yeah... I'm totally not expecting to be drunk tomorrow night playing the State of the Union Drinking Game. "Freedom" Drink! "Terrorist" Drink! "Axis of evil"?!?!?! SLAM YOUR BEER!!!!!!

|1.31.06 @ 6:08AM|#

Yeah, enough of this lack of repetition crap. Let's bring back Clinton just for the State of the Union address -- god, how I miss his amazing talents as a shameless windbag. What ever happened to him, anyway?

|1.31.06 @ 9:54AM|#

"Emmy" and "JP Deuce" I get, but "Stotty"?

I took it to be for Aristotle.

How about "The Toker"?

|1.31.06 @ 9:57AM|#

Let's bring back Clinton just for the State of the Union address -- god, how I miss his amazing talents as a shameless windbag. What ever happened to him, anyway?

I think he's out getting about 2 mill per to be a windbag now. Nice work if you can get it.

|1.31.06 @ 10:16AM|#

Isaac B is right

Also, if GWB had known Abe Lincoln, he would have called him "woah-oh black betty, Abrahama-lama"

|1.31.06 @ 10:30AM|#

For his State of the Union speech, the POTUS should recite AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock". With cannon accompaniment. Then he should throw his shirt to Justice O'Connor and leave to raucous applause.

I think these speeches are entirely overrated in importance, and I can't believe some of the nonsense the press says about them. They're just speeches, folks, and most of what various presidents say is just empty rhetoric. The era of big government is over, you know.

|1.31.06 @ 10:48AM|#

Bush allegedly reads the Nicomachean Ethics for use in composing speeches

Yeah, and probably in the original Greek as well.

|1.31.06 @ 12:43PM|#

For his State of the Union speech, the POTUS should recite AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock". With cannon accompaniment. Then he should throw his shirt to Justice O'Connor and leave to raucous applause.

I'd watch that. And of course you'd have to have Dick Cheney in the Angus Young role...

|1.31.06 @ 3:18PM|#

Nicomachean Ethics, huh? A quote from A Fish Called Wanda seems appropriate: "Apes don't read philosophy." "Yes, they do, Otto. They just don't understand it."

Nice. That made me think of this, from Monty Python's Meaning of Life:

MRS. HENDY:
Oh! I never knew Schopenhauer was a philosopher!
MR. HENDY:
Oh, yeah! He's the one that begins with an 'S'.
MRS. HENDY:
Oh.
MR. HENDY:
Umm, like, uh, 'Nietzsche'.
MRS. HENDY:
Does 'Nietzsche' begin with an 'S'?
MR. HENDY:
Uh, there's an 's' in 'Nietzsche'.
MRS. HENDY:
Oh, wow. Yes, there is. Do all philosophers have an 's' in them?
MR. HENDY:
Uh, yeah! I think most of 'em do.

|1.31.06 @ 3:47PM|#

By the way, I would love to see him attempt to say the word "Nicomachean" on live TV.

|1.31.06 @ 6:04PM|#

I'm just looking forward to Ted Nugent's election to the presidency on the Republican Nugent/Heston ticket. Those will be the best State of the Union addresses ever.

And don't think it won't happen. It's practically inevitable.