In her column in the Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan dared to reveal the sup rising secret about President Obama's rhetoric: It really ain't that good.
And Peggy should know as she was one of the major speechwriters for The Great Communicator himself, Ronald Reagan.
I use Peggy Noonan's book, On Speaking Well, in my speechwriting class.
One of Peggy's mantras is this: Great speeches contain real ideas. And great speakers communicate great ideas clearly and convincingly.
Without great ideas, a speech is nothing.
Peggy points out that Reagan never felt he was a great communicator. The soft-spoken former actor did admit however that he tried to communicate great ideas -- the idea od our nation's founders: limited, shared government; a strong free-enterprise system, the power of the individual, God-given freedoms and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Obama may be a fine speaker but his ideas are not-so-great: an all-powerful central government, more taxes, more spending, government intervention and redistribution of personal income. These ideas are not in harmony with the great democratic tradition of our nation. But these are the ideas that Obama has embraced.
And often Obama communicates no ideas at all. Hope and change for example are not ideas at all. They merely represent a slogan. Tag lines such as this only work when they have real ideas behind them.
Great speeches and great speakers make great ideas come to life. Great speakers and great speechwriters know how to encapsulate these ideas and make them meaningful and easy to understand.
For all the talk about Obama as a great orator, he simply does not measure up. In other words, his empty rhetoric has caught up with him. Nobody's listening anymore.
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