Why Is Bush A Bad Public Speaker?

[theBruiser500]

SaltCracker said in a different thread that Bush is smart but just gets nervous speaking. I don't think this is a valid point. It is like kung fu, I am practicing my kung fu routines now and then have to perform then in front of other students and my teachers. Sometimes I mess up and blank out in the middle of it and it's kind of because I'm nervous. But as I get to know the form more and more with more practice, as I get to really know it, I don't make mistakes. Same thing with speech and debate in high school.

Bottom line is, if Bush really understand and was familiar with everything he was talking about, he wouldn't [censored] up as a speaker so much.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
Bottom line is, if Bush really understand and was familiar with everything he was talking about, he wouldn't [censored] up as a speaker so much.

[/ QUOTE ]

there are many intelligent people who are simply inarticulate. the man graduated from harvard and yale, he's not a total idiot. He is the president, and even a total idiot in his position would have a better understanding of the issues that he has to comment on than most people, if only because of the army of advisors and writers that he has access to.

Personally, i think that bush's problems with public speaking are due to his intelligence or knowlege (or lack therof). some people are simply terrible public speakers, and no ammount of coaching or study will change that.

also, i don't think it's anything like kung fu.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]


Bottom line is, if Bush really understand and was familiar with everything he was talking about, he wouldn't [censored] up as a speaker so much.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hadn't thought about it until just now, but Bush comes across as an amateur actor who lacks confidence in his own acting ability, and who lacks the skill to press on and even ad lib when he blows a line. He obviously speaks from a well-scripted text. When he stumbles, he has trouble recovering. When he delivers a complex statement correctly, even a very serious one, he flashes that little shiteating grin at the end, like, "Wow, did you see me stick that landing?"

As far as not understanding what he is talking about, I think that he is involved with, and cares about, the broad, big-picture issues. "Ok, Saddam is bad and has to go. Next issue?" I don't think he understands the tactics and implementation and consequences of policy, and doesn't want to. He works on intuition, and leaves the practical stuff to his people. For example, it is clear now that the plans for war with Iraq were sadly lacking in post-victory planning. I'd bet big money that Bush never looked beyond toppling Saddam, and never questioned what was presented to him. He just knew that getting rid of Saddam was good, and that we would all live happily ever after.

The scripts that he stumbles on have the details as put together by his advisors. He doesn't stumble around because he is stupid, but because he doesn't care about the details and doesn't want to put in the time and effort to undestand them.

I think that talking to a large audience can be learned to a certain degree, but that practice and training can make you good but not great. I think that Bush doesn't like it and doesn't really put in the grunt work to learn it. He's the classic Ivy League slacker, doing whatever it takes to get by. It also just occured to me that he is much better when he is speaking to a military audience. He obviously gets off on that.

[jakethebake]

Why is Bush a Poor Public Speaker?

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
SaltCracker said in a different thread that Bush is smart but just gets nervous speaking

[/ QUOTE ] I said, or atleast I guessed, that he gets nervous, but maybe thats not it. Sometimes people are bad at explaining things verbally, and often insted excel in writting. This may be a crude example, but it works here none the less. A lot of rappers are able to write very clever raps, involving a lot of rhyming words and caddence, but when you hear most of them talk, they sound like a bunch of morons. When they describe something in a song they use a lot of metaphors and similies, but in person when answering a question, it is usually something like "YEAH THATS TIGHT DAWG". If you are a fan of the music, you may listen to one of them and say "wtf?" you can say some crazy [censored] in your raps, but then when someone asks you a siple question, you can barely answer it. Does that make any sense?


Anyways, I really have no idea if Bush is a great one on one communicator, or a good writer. But I do know that if you try to gauge someones intelligence based on his public speaking skills, you are a fool.

[Toro]

[ QUOTE ]
the man graduated from harvard and yale, he's not a total idiot.

[/ QUOTE ]

The fact that he graduated from these two schools doesn't mean squat. He got in because of his family name and money and it's also likely that the big endowments those two "esteemed" universities recieved from his family didn't hurt his GPA.

Let's not be naive, money talks.

[Cyrus]

It's not as if George W. Bush started giving speeches in public last week and "he is nervous". Come on. He was a Governor before he was president and he was actively involved in Texas sports before that. Plus, he had (must have had) as much training and tutoring as he can possibly take.

No, the reason for Dubya's specific shortcomings when speaking in public (non-sequiturs, etc) is most probably a slight and not significant brain damage that causes something akin to temporary cognitive dissonance. Laymen call it brain farting.

[cardcounter0]

Bush isn't a great writer either. Ask any great writer if they read, and they will start talking about all the great books they have read. Bush won't even read a newspaper, they are read and spoon fed to him.

He was a 'C' student at Yale (I think big donating alums get C's, sort of a "gentlemanly" grade).

This is the guy who was quoted as saying "It must be a budget, it has numbers in it." Gee, budgets have numbers, I wonder if he learned that at Harvard Business School.

He got practically the lowest score you can get in his National Guard entrance exam (something he was highly motivated to do well in, it would have made pulling strings to get him in much easier).

I wonder if there will ever be an investigation into how this lazy idiot slacker ever got awarded a diploma from Harvard, and exactly who did his course work for him.

[ThaSaltCracka]

you and Bush apparently have a lot in common.

[cardcounter0]

It is not just public 'speaking'. Hell, the guy can't string together more than 3 words together at a time reading from a teleprompter.

When I went to business school, speech was a required subject. Getting in front of people giving orations, etc.
Most classes you had to present proposals or debate. All in preperation to train executives to be able to give presentations, or address a board of directors, or any of the other numerous public speaking functions an executive does. There were even subjects like properly addressing the media, etc.

I wonder how Bush passed these types of classes at Harvard?

[Cyrus]

"The man graduated from Harvard and Yale, he's not a total idiot."

Sometimes that's precisely the proof.

[cardcounter0]

Not really. I can eat pretzels and haven't fallen off a bike in years.

[Toro]

A skull full of bones [Re: bholdr]

Very good!

[Fluffington]

[ QUOTE ]
He got practically the lowest score you can get in his National Guard entrance exam (something he was highly motivated to do well in, it would have made pulling strings to get him in much easier).

[/ QUOTE ]

He night just have been hungover that day. He has performed well on other assesment tests:

"Mr. Bush's score on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test at age 22 again suggests that his I.Q was the mid-120's, putting Mr. Bush in about the 95th percentile of the population, according to Mr. Sailer. Mr. Kerry's I.Q. was about 120, in the 91st percentile, according to Mr. Sailer's extrapolation of his score at age 22 on the Navy Officer Qualification Test."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/politics/campaign/24points.html?oref=login&oref=login&oref=regi

He also scored well on his SAT's.

[cardcounter0]

Maybe someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I think IQ measures intelligence potential. In other words, what you are capable of.

You could be a complete uneducated ignorant ass, and yet have a high IQ. On the other hand, if you studied and applied yourself very hard, you could be quite knowledgable and know very many facts, and yet not have a very high IQ at all.

I think that the performance that Bush has shown, and the decisions he has made through out his life, armed with a 120 IQ, shows what an underperforming lazy slacker he is.

[bholdr]

lol

[bholdr]

i think that you may be underestimating the man, and the schools that he attended.

[ QUOTE ]
Let's not be naive, money talks

[/ QUOTE ]
sure does, but if you think both of those schools would accept a 'total idiot', and then graduate him twice, just to get some grants from his family (and when we're talking harvard and yale, they're kinda middle class), you're th one that's being naive. more likely, it was association with his family (his father, brothers jeb and neil, grandfather (dead), and mother are all, imo, extremly intelligent people.) and their money (best prep schools, tutors, etc) that allowed him to attend and succeed at school. he probably did get 'a little help from his freinds' but, to simply dismiss his acedemic acheviements because he doesn't appear intelligent in public isn't logical.

besides, i have never seen any evidence to support your claims that his family and money got him in. or that any endowments helped his GPA. and why the "" on esteemed?

[theBruiser500]

"also, i don't think it's anything like kung fu. "

Kung fu is just an example, this is about anything that requires a lot of practice. If you practice a lot and are familiar with what you're doing you won't mess up.

[theBruiser500]

"people are bad at explaining things verbally"

I don't think this is the issue. All my high school teachers, the best ones I had, they were all the most knowledeable on the subject. Same for my kung fu teacher now in China. He barely speaks English but he is still a very good teacher because he has such a deep understanding of it.

[theBruiser500]

Cyrus I don't understand, are you disagreeing or agreeing with me?

[theBruiser500]

Our president should have a much higher IQ than 125.

[Toro]

You were the one making the assumptions that just because he graduated from Harvard and Yale, he must be intelligent.

I was just offering an alternate possibilty that it was the money and power that got him through. My scenario is just as possible as yours.

The "esteemed" in quotes was sarcasm as I'm not as impressed by those institutions as others.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Al Gore flunked out of Harvard...
Ted Kennedy got kicked out for cheating.

Bush graduated from Yale..............

[MelchyBeau]

and Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. Einstien failed math. Everything tastes like chicken.

What does this have to do with Bush being an Idiot?

Nothing, just like this post about Al Gore and Ted Kennedy


Melch

[CCass]

[ QUOTE ]
Our president should have a much higher IQ than 125.

[/ QUOTE ]

A would submit that a persons IQ (once it is over 100 or so) has little to do with their ability to lead this country. Nixon and Clinton were/are both very smart, and I wouldn't trust either of them to run a hot dog stand, much less the US.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
Our president should have a much higher IQ than 125.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree! Why wasn't this written into the original job requirements? WANTED: President. Must be over 35, a natural born citizen and have an IQ over 125. This is hilarious!

[cardcounter0]

I would say Al Gore is certainly smarter. The guy teaches classes at college and seems to be well informed on many subjects. There are even rumors he invented the internet.
/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Ted Kennedy, on the other hand, is (like Bush) the dumb one of the litter.

I remember when he was running for President, and was asked why he wanted to be President. Dimwit couldn't come up with an answer. Kind of the same stutter and stammer that Bush gave when asked if he had ever made a mistake.

To Kennedy's credit, however, he finally admitted, "I don't know", which a Bush will never do, too stupid and stubborn.

[cardcounter0]

Clinton especially! I mean, he left office and Bush had to immediately deal with the huge problem he left of what to do with all that surplus money.

WoooooBooooy! Am I glad those days are over.

[CCass]

I wouldn't let anyone that lacked integrity run any business of mine. Clinton would rather climb a tree and tell a lie, than stand on the ground and tell the truth.

[zaxx19]

Yeah cardcounter and Clinton sure left national security and intelligence in good shape we found out how good in Sept 11 of 2001. Nice job Clinton very well done. Perhaps the weakest foreign policy-defense president in the 20th century.

[Toro]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah cardcounter and Clinton sure left national security and intelligence in good shape we found out how good in Sept 11 of 2001. Nice job Clinton very well done. Perhaps the weakest foreign policy-defense president in the 20th century.

[/ QUOTE ]

Broken record: All of the successes of the Clinton presidency were the result of Bush Sr and all of the failures of GWB were the result of Clinton bad policies.

When does dubya take responsibilty for his own policy. Can we start now or is there still a residual effect of those awful 8 years of peace and prosperity of the Clinton presidency. Just curious.

[bholdr]

i didn't say 'intelligent' i said 'not a total idiot'
there is a diffrence

c'mon.

[Cpt Spaulding]

When you are doing your kung foo, do you have thousands of reporters from all over the world watching you? I seriously doubt it.... Do you realize how much stress he is under? All you want is someone who looks and sounds good on TV...Don't be so superficial. Hitler was an incredible public speaker, would you condider him intelligent?

[Toro]

[ QUOTE ]
i didn't say 'intelligent' i said 'not a total idiot'
there is a diffrence

c'mon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeay, I figured you'd pick up on that little distortion. I guess I just have a blind spot when it comes to Bush.

[theBruiser500]

One more example I thought of, which is pretty compelling IMO. All the best posters on this site are the best poker players. I can't think of a single great poster who isn't a great player, or a single great player who isn't a great poster. This is not about who is a good "communicator".

[bholdr]

yes, unfourtunatly

intelligence, morality, and wisdom are different things. given hitler's ability to write, speak and lead, i would have to assume he was highly intelligent, or at least above avarage for his time.

note that this does not mean that i am defending him. just like my statment that bush probably isn't a total idiot was not made in his defence. i laothe and despise what hitler stood for. bush i simply disagree with very strongly. and as far as kung fu and public speaking goes; appes and oaranges.

[zaxx19]

Nixon had a 178 IQ.....

Probably the highest of any "modern" prez....

I dare say Nixon isnt a fan favorite on this board....

[Hack]

I don't know why he is.

I'm not stupid and I am a terrible public speaker as well.

Lots of intelligent people are terrible at public speaking.

Some are naturals at it, like Reagan, and some must work hard at it, like Bush.

[Hack]

Nixon was a scumbag. He was a combination of the worst elements of both political parties.

If he ran for president today he would not be able to run as a Republican. He'd have to run as a Democrat.

He was fiscally liberal and somewhat socially conservative.

He spent money like crazy on useless federal programs and his Vietnamization was a failure.

He instituted price controls that did not work at all and started the federal War on Drugs.

He was a miserable failure as president.