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?