Not Trippingly on the Tongue

I cannot say who won the debate tonight. In 1960, I thought Nixon had won. Of course, I was judging on content not style. (Radio listeners thought Nixon won, too. TV gave the more handsome Kennedy his edge.) When it comes to style, I do have some things to say about Obama.
Like Kennedy, he looks young, handsome and he articulates some impressive generalities that , again like Kennedy, give him a strong superficial appeal. I keep hearing and reading people who say that Senator Obama is such a good speech maker.
I don’t see it. I didn’t see it tonight. He stammers, he persists in dropping all “g”s from his present participles. While I will listen and learn from people who do that, I will not call them excellent speakers. Picky, picky, picky – but all I hear from the media is what an orator he is.
An orator? A first class public speaker? Hardly. Not in my book.
McCain is no Churchill or Kennedy – but at least he spoke as if he knew the subject he was talking about. There were moments of real passion in his voice.
Obama, on the other hand, speaks as if he were reciting from an only partially memorized speech. He shoots out a few words, without a lot of feeling, and then he hesitates as if he were looking for the next words on a paper or a teleprompter.
It feels like a ride over a bumpy road in a vehicle with bad shock absorbers. I honestly do not enjoy listening to him – just his manner of speaking – one bit. He even says things I think I may agree with, but his delivery is so poor that I am left unimpressed and unmoved. I’ve felt that way about him since the first time a saw a news clip of one of his speeches, long ago.
So does that make him a poor choice for president? I admit that right now I am judging him on his style of speaking. And that I profoundly dislike that style. That leaves me unqualified to judge who actually won. Even if I tried, would I know? I was wrong about Kennedy/Nixon.
I fear there’s a disconnect between me and many if not most American listeners. My father unwittingly turned me into a bit of a freak when it comes to spoken English. He had trained to be an actor, done graduate work in speech, and was determined to pass it along to his only son.
Some of his efforts were enjoyable. I have fond memories of listening to my father read Shakespeare to me on a Sunday afternoons. I was seven or eight. I’ve read research that says that’s the best age to enjoy the comedies – pure slapstick. He read them all.
Other parts were not such fun. There was discipline and strong disapproval if I dipped into slang or careless speech patterns. “You will learn to speak the King’s English!” he would bellow. (In Grand Rapids? I quickly became the fat kid with glasses and a funny accent. People still ask me, 60 years later, where I came from.)
He made a point of taking me to movies where English was well spoken – Olivier, Laughton, Niven, Hepburn -- and Edward R. Murrow and Lowell Thomas on radio. I remember when I was young being taken to the radio to hear a speech by a man named Winston Churchill. I believe that was the Fulton, Missouri, speech when he spoke of the “iron curtain”.
On Christmas Eve I would listen to Lionel Barrymore read “The Christmas Carol” – and haven’t liked any other version better ever since.
My father never missed an opportunity to point out to me someone who spoke English well – or badly.
So I’m in no position to accurately gauge the quality of an American political speaker. Or who won an American political debate. But, I have to admit, I do not like Obama’s speaking style.