Simon says: listening to Obama the great orator
This statement by Politco’s Roger Simon may just be the finest encapsulation I’ve heard recently of what’s wrong with the media today. Talking to Howard Kurtz at CNN about the fact that the press has been critical lately of Obama’s actions in Libya, Simon says:
The bloom isn’t entirely off the rose between Obama and the press, but reporters are starting to concentrate more than ever on what he says rather than how he says it. We will stipulate that he’s the greatest orator of modern times, but now we’re looking beyond that in every speech for what he’s actually telling us.
Here’s the video:
Such a fertile field for thought and reflection!
Is Simon talking about himself or the press in general?
Is his statement that Obama is “the greatest orator of modern times” something he believes to be so self-evident that it’s clearly true?
When does he believe “modern times” began? If 2008, then perhaps he’s right. If it includes the 20th century—well, there were a couple of minor orators such as Churchill, FDR, and (from the reports of native German speakers) Adolf Hitler to consider. Reagan wasn’t half bad, either.
I’d also like to ask Simon whether he thinks the art of oration includes content, or whether it’s purely an acting and delivery thing (either way, my personal opinion is that both are dreadful in Obama’s case, but I’m well aware that the majority of people would probably differ with me on that score). Can one be a great orator while uttering meaningless gibberish, for example? And if not, will empty platitudes voiced in a resonant voice do?
Simon appears to be aware that reporters are supposed to be skeptical; he says so right before the “greatest orator” remark. Simon’s admission that it’s only now that reporters are “looking beyond” the way Obama speaks to the actual content is both remarkable and disturbing. Is he saying that reporters make a habit of looking on the surface of things and pay no attention to substance? Or is he saying there’s something special about Obama that made them suspend their usual skepticism and be seduced by his smoothness and his supposedly self-evident eloquence?
In sum, is Simon saying that reporters are fools? Or is he saying they are knaves? Or perhaps that they are foolish knaves, or knavish fools? And do we care anymore which it might be, if in fact we ever did?
And how long, how long, will these people be listened to with any sort of respect by anyone?
If it helps I’m with you on both. His mannerism and cliches are grating on my nerves. As for the hope, change and “let me be clear” – it’s quite clear already that there is very little hope left for a change for better.
For a minute I thought you were quote the Roger Simon, not the dullard leftist one, about whom I couldn’t care less.
Me too, Occam. But the sad fact is. this Roger is accurately representative of the breed. Despite their reduction in public impact, they remain a formidable force in herding public opinion. That Baraq still gets 42% approval is testimony enough.
It is not in them to generate a shift to rational ideation.
I suspect the “great orator” reference is Simon’s oblique way of exculpating himself. It wasn’t that he’s simple, or gullible. No, it’s that diabolical oratory that led him astray. The man’s in league with the devil! That must be it. Not Simon’s fault at all.
“And how long, how long, will these people be listened to with any sort of respect by anyone?”
Good question.
They lost me with Abu Ghraib. The NYT ran 34 front page articles on the abuses of Abu Ghraib. Not 5 front page stories, or even 10. No, it took the NYT 34 front page columns to tell the story.
The relentless, almost daily front page coverage for over a solid month, was clearly intended to smear the entire military (the abuse was committed by one rogue Reserve unit, or maybe it was a National Guard unit, I don’t remember. But it was not done by a regular Army unit and it was neither policy or condoned by anyone responsible for setting policy. But Rumsfeld ultimately resigned in part because of the abuses at Abu Ghraib). They also wanted to shift the sentiment on the war, and attempted to damage the Bush presidency a few months prior to the 2004 elections. The whole thing disgusted me so much that Abu Ghraib was one of five reasons I listed for cancelling my NYT subscription in 2006. I had spent many thousands of dollars on subscriptions over the years, beginning in the early 1990s when I first moved to NYC.
BTW, I highly recommend two farily recent blog posts written by John Hinderaker at Power Line blog titled “Anatomy of a Smear” and “Anatomy of a Smear, Part II”. He clearly documents how smears that begin in the leftosphere (he uses one that originated with Think Progress as the example) are legitimized when they get picked up and published in both the Washington Post and the New York Times Op-Ed pages. It’s pretty incredible.
Before I clicked on “Submit Comment”, I dug up the links if anyone is interested:
Anatomy of a Smear
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/03/028666.php
Anatomy of a Smear, Part II
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/03/028733.php
Okay, I’ll bite. How do we define “orator”?
Dictionary.com says it is “a person who delivers an oration; a public speaker, especially one of great eloquence”.
Is he more eloquent than others? Given the times he’s gone off the script written for him by others (and promptly tripped over his own tongue), I wouldn’t say so.
One test of a great orator, in my opinion, is the ability to sway, with his/her eloquence, people who initially disagreed with him/her. On that score, President Obama is indeed one of the great ones; based on little more than his ability to talk, he got elected President of the United States, with a resume that could fit on the back of a postage stamp.
Another mark of a great orator would be lasting oratory. Here President Obama falls well short. If I mention the oratory of Lincoln, or of Churchill, most of us would have no trouble recalling many of their immortal words, words that can stir us decades and centuries after the fact. Some politicians can rise to that level on a few occasions; John F. Kennedy comes to mind.
But other than a few election-year slogans, what has President Obama said for the ages? Granted, I don’t like the guy, so I pay less attention to his speeches than some… but has he said anything to inspire us years from now? I can’t think of anything.
Next: will we see the Left starting to distance themselves from claims to President Obama’s supposed high intelligence? He claims to be the smartest man in the room, but none of us have seen any proof of this whatsoever… and we’ve seen plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Daniel,
Didn’t he adlib something about wanting to be left to eat his waffle? That line didn’t exactly inspire me to great deeds, but you have to admit it summed him up rather concisely.
“Is he saying that reporters make a habit of looking on the surface of things and pay no attention to substance? Or is he saying there’s something special about Obama that made them suspend their usual skepticism and be seduced by his smoothness and his supposedly self-evident eloquence? ”
Yes..
Barry Rubin has a take on modern journalism at The Rubin Report today.
And Daniel in Brookline, how can you say that Obama’s oratory doesn’t stay with a person? For example who can forget:
” I..I..I.. let me be clear, some say..I..unlike the previous administration…I..I..I”
Doesn’t “stipulate” imply distance from “he’s the greatest orator of modern times”?
To “stipulate” that something is so is to assume it’s true without proof for a particular purpose, and doesn’t necessarily imply acceptance. Here it seems to mean “we’ll all proceed as if he’s the greatest orator of modern times.”
Simon is exhibiting the unexciting return to rationality from the “I want to believe” phenomenon. If we are created beings and have a spiritual dimension, a “hyperspace” if you will, then the phenomenon of materialists acting as crazy as the rolling-in-the-hay-see-you-at-the-revival Pentecostals is no surprise. (Catholics too! They get rather excited at seeing the Pope.)
The irony here is how much the Left is addicted to faith and feeling. Obama gave them that. He was the “Word which became God.” We shouldn’t underestimate the powerful changes that mass meetings and a mass movement provides. It’s hypnotic and narcotic and habit forming and brain altering. It’s not against reason, per se, it just doesn’t incorporate reason. That is why the two modes of being can exist side by side. And the Left, no matter what they say or deny, when it finds something which fills that spiritual void, loves it and rues its passing.
You Neanderthal Neo cons! dont you realize how great an orator President Obama is….consider his Democratic party acceptance speech where he so eloquently told us this was the day “the oceans stopped rising”… Al gore beleived him so much he bought a second mansion – near the beach-so clearly he can persuade! 😉
Obama is praised by liberals as a great intellect and orator by the same kneejerk emotional affliction that makes them see all incompetence in a victimhood framework deserving of special praise and consideration.
Neo posts Kolnai-bait. I love to drop a reference to Richard Weaver’s “The Ethics of Rhetoric,” and by his subtle definition Obama is a sophist, not an orator or a rhetor proper (rhetoric proper always reflects the use of reason for the attainment of truth – as Curtis suggested above).
It can be put in even simpler terms. Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero and Plutarch (the Fantastic Four of Oratory and Rhetoric) would laugh at the idea of Obama as a great orator. I feel comfortable that they knew what they were talking about.
Those of us in the minority who always thought the idea of Obama as a great orator something of a joke have a crew of titans behind us. Common sense is a classical value, after all.
That the left (and, unfortunately, some on the right) do not understand the difference between an occasionally effective speaker and a great orator is telling as to how much common sense they possess. It doesn’t say much for their aesthetic sense either.
Just as “its not even wrong” was said of a physics paper… Obama is “not even speaking”
[they dont explain it right, but close enough. the REAL explanation is that one has to be in the stadium to miss a catch… if the ball player is not even in the state, did he miss it, or was he not even playing? they think it has to do with being able to be falsified… which it does not… ]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
but as i said.,,
look and find a thread, and they ALL lead back to the same people, ideas, and blind followers, and concepts
on the page farther down is:
See also
* Cargo cult science
* Mu (negative)
* Wronger than wrong
* Logical positivism
* Karl Popper
and once again, we have popper, the progressive, the movement points, and the mentality of cargo cultism..
he is a great orator in the same way that the cargo cult natives had great airports..
all image.. he has the image of the orator. so he must be… the idea that they never actually paid attention to what he said, shows that they were told what to think about him.
after all, if your brain tells your hand to stay in the pocket, does it slap someone on its own (without a medical condition)?
no… he is a cell in the body politic, and he does not think… and if greater people than he say obama is a great orator, then he is.
or as marx said..
that can be fixed with a bit of dialectics..
or as orwell said
how many fingers do i have up
or the chinese general
how do you like my purple horse
Touche, SteveH.
There are times that Obama makes President Bush sound like the president of Toastmasters.
The irony here is how much the Left is addicted to faith and feeling. Obama gave them that
When people cease to believe in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.
– G. K. Chesterton
and here is an athiest trying to talk about it, but an atheist is a materialist, and so by definition, cant see that there is a metaphysical level to things. where things like emergence happen, and all kinds of stuff. after all, the mind is an emergent property, you cant find its place, its seat. the athiest doesnt realize that chesterton was right, only because he believes that the ideas he has taken up are really good. but that was chestertons point, which he says is otherwise. that if you believe in nonsense, you dont know its nonsense, you will defend it and so on.
and what the atheists do, is ignore the reality of how a theory of mind can be used as a tool. that when people who believe in god, get how to live by gods word, and morals, that he thinks one has to see visions and crazy stuff to ‘know’ what god wants or doesnt want.
but let me point this out. i have a screwdriver here, i am thinking as to the atheist author. if i use my theory of mind about common people, i will ‘know’ that this man would not like the screwdriver put into his eye (recognizing that for a few, like oedipus, the answer may be different). I can also sermise this same end, even if i want to put a screwdriver into my eye.
we can imagine other people, and we can imagine that they have minds, and that their minds would be a certain way and so we could then ‘know’ what that mind would want. especially when the rules and abstracts are set up right…
so religious belief in god, whether real or not, pushes us to imagine another in a certain way. the book not changing allows that mental image to not waver. and so does following the key rules. which is why the enlightenment could result in a paring down of actions but not meaning (except that cargo cult actions like animal sacrifice, keeps the athiests in the church as they have a concrete something to do, to associate outcomes with. so materialists need that action, as they find meaning in sacrifice, ie suffering, and harder work, which are surface cargo cult qualities.
anyway… the athiest actually tends to ahve crappy theories of mind too, just listen to how they describe theists in such a unreal model that anyone with an iota of time and desire could find out doesnt match. (so its also stuck in a feedback loop).
what religious people do is share a common idea which through the power of our ability to theorize as to other minds and motives, we can learn from (even if they arent there)
this is why the changes in gods and types and arrangements led to such profound different changes in the cultures that believed or lived them…
and why ours is falling apart with secular athiesm at the helm. which has no common center. as the theory of mind is your own, and you project it out wards to have everyone else be equal and so have the same mind.
pick a religion and you will find that the people in it use the theory of mind to learn from their idea of a greater being. if this is what makes up the diety, then he must think this.
and its interesting to note, that in the west the gods most known that gave decent organization, is the gods which became symbolic to progressives, but are from the past.
so the egyptian faiths of the pyramids, the multitheologies of greeks and romans, norse… the trinity, father son holy ghost, of the jews, christians and islam, bhudda and the non entity religions of the east, and many more of course.
note that each formed cultures through others seeing thorugh a common lense thruough the theory of mind we have and use.
the key is that the many gods idea allowed personalities to gravitate to each the same way we do to different drugs, or music, etc.
the ones absent people or were of gods not of people tended to be cold and made this world as not real as their worlds as far as value and so action.
the mono theisms two older groups, start with the idea that god used himself as a model for us. that each of the layers that were made, were more and more like the deity. if the diety really is the opitome, then he would want his opitome to be like him (or her).
and so we knew we could know the mind of god, becuase we are like god, but not perfect like him and have to learn from him. a great set up for a theory of mind to have a reference point. the counter point of evil allows one to think of the bad people thinking as theory of mind of sick people.
when christianity became more diluted until the personal god, became our personal gods, and polytheistic again (where one god is all things to everyone, not one thing to all), and so we come unglued again.
the atheism is just a non religion, where a nothing is in place and so there is no mind to model or use your theory on, and so there is none of those gifts from a real god, like sacred, holy, etc…
all metaphysical…
the no religion people basically have no common theory of mind and so no common point to create society around.
and so they make hell…
the common point where there is no theory of mind, but their own.
What Simon is really saying:
It was great sex, but I don’t think he really loves me.
Get used to it Simon. Obama doesn’t woo. You, like the Germans of WWII, have proved unworthy of your so called great man.
Meanwhile, Simon, us tea partiers are saving the country. All this talk about “free riders” and health care! As if the payers were the free riders! What a crock!
We don’t care how hell-low-quent anyone is. Don’t shovel us shit and call it sugar, sunshine.
The media? Knavish fools, for the most part, with some cunning knaves mixed in. Anyone who has ever seen the MSM cover his area of expertise or experience is well aware that journalists think they are smart, but aren’t. Pitiful, really.
“The lion for his courage, the fox for his cunning.”
–Wm. Blake
“The lion for his courage, the fox for his cunning.”
—Wm. Blake
“And the turkey for his gullibility.” – Occam’s Beard
I’d also like to ask Simon whether he thinks the art of oration includes content, or whether it’s purely an acting and delivery thing
The Press has been so hollowed out by show biz and entertainment that the question would be a divide-by-zero error to him. He wouldn’t understand what you’re asking.
To Borepatch’s excellent point, watch the network news (the local news is even worse – shudder).
My family and I happened to see it one evening a while ago when we were traveling, and even my kids (the older one just learning to drive) were laughing at its vapidity.
Katie Couric spent at least five minutes gravely intoning about the transport of Gabriela Gifford to another hospital (with endless obligatory footage of the now-ubiquitous yellow ribbons, flowers, and teddy bears). Then another five minutes about the “Tiger Mom,” with commentary from her and rebuttal from various sources, followed by another five minutes about Silvio Berlusconi’s proclivity for hot young chicks (a first, that), apropos pretty much nothing except working hot young chicks into the “newscast,” and closing with a “fluff piece” (stiff competition for that honor) on some outfit knitting knit caps for youngsters. And then, mercifully, the sign off.
Were those the most important stories of the day? No mention of, say, unemployment, the War on Terrorism, the housing market, or the stability of the financial system. Were they considered less important than knit caps? Seriously?
My kids laughed. “No wonder TV ‘journalism’ is in the dumper!”
O.B.: It is mass chickification.
for you Occam’s Beard…
Misdirection: “When we play our Charades”
floppingaces.net/2011/04/03/misdirection-%E2%80%9Cwhen-we-play-our-charades%E2%80%9D-reader-post/
just realized that the post with chesterton is missing the athiesm link…
atheism.about.com/od/isatheismdangerous/a/BelieveAnything.htm
-=-=-=-=-
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
– G. K. Chesterton
and too bad we read golstein and not him
Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.
– G. K. Chesterto
O.B.: It is mass chickification.
Indeed. I call it “Oprahification,” but that’s a distinction without a difference. The notion that feelings trump thoughts is highly pernicious, and must be combatted.
Speaking of the news ‘anchors’, why don’t we call them news READERS as they do in the UK? Second, have you noticed their eyebrows? Yes, their eyebrows – constantly in a sympathetic/empathetic
position. At first I thought this was a woman thing (Diane Sawyer especially), but then I noticed Brian W. was doing it too. Yuck. Total yuck.
“” I call it “Oprahification,” but that’s a distinction without a difference.””
OB
To see this in all its pitiful glory, find an online webcam for a Decorah Iowa bald eagle nest where hatchlings are being born (hattip rickl) and read the women’s comments. It’s almost like they can’t stomach the injustice they see this mother bird enduring in being exposed to nature’s elements. As though these birds are victims in a cruel world, without any sense that their magnificence would disappear if that wasn’t the case.
“”As though these birds are victims in a cruel world, without any sense that their magnificence would disappear if that wasn’t the case.””
Come to think of it, this is probably what’s behind the feminized liberal’s reflexive view of humans as particularly non magnificent in the world. They just don’t know they are the ones creating the distasteful childlike adults through their own insistance on dependancy under the guise of providing compassionate security.
As one who is highly resistant to sales pitches of any type, whether they’re for a political candidate or a new brand of toilet bowl cleaner, I never found anything especially impressive about Obama’s policies or his oratorical skills. My reaction to his speeches was generally, “that’s the same bullsh** I read about in the transcript of his previous speech. Didn’t make any sense there, either”. Hearing it spoken with a resonant voice didn’t make it any more palatable than reading about it on a printed page. And the MSM is just now figuring this out? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Infatuation dies hard in groupies.
Only time Pres. Obama’s speaking ever impressed me was at that fateful Dem convention… and what impressed me was that his life story was a *Republican* one, a by-your-bootstraps narrative. I said to my husband, “Who is he, and what’s he doing on their side?” and knew he’d (someday) be a comer for the Democrats. Little did I dream that he was being groomed for the Oval Office…
But I’ve had about enough of “Let me be clear,” followed by “evenhanded” obfuscation.