Obama--An Orator?

I watched Obama’s speech last night. He’s said it all before, so there wasn’t really anything to listen to—so I spent my time trying to answer a question that’s been bothering me: why do people call him an orator?
I’m at least modestly competent to ask that question. My father was a trained speaker, and he poured a lot of energy into making me a good one. When I was very young, he would read Shakespeare’s comedies to me on Sunday afternoons. I can still hear his voice.
When I was about seven he took me to the radio and said, “Now we are going to listen to a speech by the greatest speaker of this century”. That was my introduction to Winston Churchill. Since then I have listened to recordings of hours of his speeches and read nearly every one he ever made.
He would point out the acting and speaking abilities of various actors when we went to the movies. I grew up surrounded by the voices of the likes of Lawrence Olivier, David Niven, Milton Cross and a host of others. I debated, entered speech contests (won a few) and came out of college with a speech minor.
In those days we had actors and politicians who actually spoke well. Some, occasionally, came close to real oratory. Listen to some of Roosevelt’s best speeches. Even Eisenhower, at moments like D-Day could be powerful in his simplicity—“This morning at four o’clock an allied expeditionary force landed on the coast of France … .” Gary Cooper, at his most taciturn, couldn’t have done it better.
Kennedy knew how to make a line memorable. But, Obama? He is well educated. American English is obviously his native tongue, stammers, pauses, flat voice and all. It’s a competent usage of words, but it isn’t oratory.
He isn’t even a good speaker. A couple of my friends who also come from an age when English was still well spoken agree. They cannot figure out why people call Obama such an orator. Last night something finally came to mind. Very few living Americans have ever HEARD oratory.
We have passed on, as a nation and as a language, from the days when actors were expected to give their lines with emotional force, clearly, “trippingly on the tongue”. What we watch on television or at the movies is scarcely acting any more. (Politicians are even more appalling.)
Compare a Brad Pitt or a Tom Cruise to William Conrad or Lawrence Olivier. Don’t, it will ruin most modern movies for you. Listen to Elizabeth Taylor (who could do “mad” superbly) and Richard Burton going at it in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe” or “The Taming of the Shrew”!
No wonder modern films depend so heavily on ever more spectacular computer generated special effects. It takes our minds off what is being said and HOW it is being said.
Compared to what’s on our TV and movie screens, Obama probably sounds pretty good. He can speak his lines without needing special effects or a naked co-star to hold our attention. For a Twenty-First Century speaker, that’s something to say.
We’ve long ago learned to forgive stammers, blank stares and flat inflection—all we seem to ask today is that there be some minimal sense to the words, that they seem somehow to hold together. Obama does do that. I don’t hear any, “like wow, dude”, “my bad”, or other sorts of gibberish that pass for speech in our high school halls.
We probably can’t ask for too much more. (I do question how well Obama would have done as a litigator in front of a jury, but he wisely didn’t choose that path.) His adoring hearers strike me as similar in their response to people who supposedly once heard a dog speak. They were so impressed that it could do it at all, they did not criticize any lapses.
After eight years of George Bush—who truly mangled the language—this is no doubt an improvement.
But it would be nice, someday, to hear real speech, real oratory. I’ll take it on screen and even in front of a joint session of Congress. I think I’ll recognize it when I hear it.