The Bushes on Larry King
The thing about the president is that he appears worse the more he speaks. In the recent weeks, my personal approval rating of him wasn't so low. Sure, gas prices are high, but he's been making concerted efforts to build better diplomatic relations, and I agreed with him basically on the immigration issue, and the administration has been working on an exit strategy in Iraq (one that does NOT look like, "Bye!"), and most of all, Bush has been keeping his mouth shut on a lot of the favorite Republican issues, like gay marriage or abortion or flag burning (compare, say, with his yes-manning to the whole stem cell research party line).
It might also be that I have a more personal stake in Bush's aggressive style of leadership now that North Korea is acting up. Whether or not the South Koreans believe it's likely, I would be totally devastated if NK should blow up Seoul. And I would be even more devastated if they blew up Los Angeles (though apparently their missiles don't have that capability yet).
But my point is, seeing the Bush interview on Larry King reminded me of why I thought he was the devil in the first place. He's both narrow-minded and slick-talking, a noxious combination. I really can't decide if he's stupid of brilliant. For what it's worth, I would advise Bush to spend the rest of his term working hard but not tooting his horn about it. It does more damage than good, I think.
Of course, I could be the statistical outlier, which may account for the low approval ratings from the voters overall. Maybe other people feel reassured when they hear a slick talker - I guess that's the point of slick talking, right?
It might also be that I have a more personal stake in Bush's aggressive style of leadership now that North Korea is acting up. Whether or not the South Koreans believe it's likely, I would be totally devastated if NK should blow up Seoul. And I would be even more devastated if they blew up Los Angeles (though apparently their missiles don't have that capability yet).
But my point is, seeing the Bush interview on Larry King reminded me of why I thought he was the devil in the first place. He's both narrow-minded and slick-talking, a noxious combination. I really can't decide if he's stupid of brilliant. For what it's worth, I would advise Bush to spend the rest of his term working hard but not tooting his horn about it. It does more damage than good, I think.
Of course, I could be the statistical outlier, which may account for the low approval ratings from the voters overall. Maybe other people feel reassured when they hear a slick talker - I guess that's the point of slick talking, right?
posted by Rex at 12:30 AM
2 Comments:
Do you really think he's slick-talking? Hmm. I think that he's weasel-y-talking, although maybe that's the same thing as your slick-talking. I can barely stand to listen to him - particularly when he's speaking extemporaneously - because I constantly find myself thinking "But what does that mean?"
I've gotta agree with Bob Dively- Bush has to be the least polished public speaker I've ever heard occupy the office of presidency, which to me makes him the opposite of slick-talking. I think of someone like Tony Blair as slick-talking: he's able to really sound convincing about something, even if you don't agree with him. Bush just sounds like he's always searching for words, and never hits on a combination that actually sounds intelligent.
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