Amidst The “Gaffes”, A “Thoughtful Speech” Is Located

Clive James, given a BBC platform to discuss American presidential-level “gaffes”, reminds us of some genuine howlers, like this famous one:

…President Eisenhower was already a victim of press precision when he was not yet even a candidate. He was still commander of Allied Forces in Europe when he addressed his troops thus: “Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal.”…

Mr James goes on to tell us he feels:

…all the evidence suggests that Churchillian phrase-making has never been an advantage in American politics. JFK was meant to be the exception, but I never much liked a too well-balanced rhetorical exhortation like “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”. It sounded manufactured, and in fact it was, by a speechwriter.

Borrowed or not, JFK’s eloquence didn’t stop him foolishly invading Cuba, or ignoring the CIA’s advice and putting US military personnel on the ground in Vietnam. I preferred the bumblers…

Hamas will clearly be upset to learn how imperialistic President Kennedy was.

…The threat now isn’t from the public figure who makes gaffes, but from the pumped-up media coverage that gives the gaffes disproportionate attention, or even manufactures the gaffe…

Most would concur. It is indeed that media decides which gaffes get the endless replay, loop treatment. Like Sen Obama’s “57 states” laugher, which obviously hit the wires after Mr James finished saying his piece. (Ooh, too bad. Now, let’s see if the senator’s getting tangled over the number of states is worth in reruns as much as another’s having mispelled potato. Knowing of media’s idolization of Sen Obama, one shouldn’t bet on it.)

Interestingly, near the end, has an endorsement of sorts also been slipped in quietly?:

…What Senator Obama really thinks about race relations in America can be deduced from a thoughtful speech which can be read in its entirety on the web, which is already proving a valuable supplement to the press. When we can read the whole speech we will be less likely to be swayed by the soundbite…

Mr James apparently couldn’t find any other examples of “thoughtful” speeches by others perhaps slightly misheard, but which could as easily be read in their entirety on the web.[*] Or, might one also think, if you read that whole speech by Sen Obama, that it might sound precisely like just the sort of calculating, manufactured rhetoric — “…Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well…” — that Mr James also claims he doesn’t much like to hear?

It may be worth recalling for a moment that President Theodore Roosevelt had made it clear that any quote attributed to him was to be considered untrustworthy in terms of policy if it had not been dispensed by him through his official capacity as president. He took that line with reporters because he claimed that he had to have the full freedom not to feel constrained to speak his mind with assistants and aides when discussing policy ideas. What that amounted to was this: someone working in the White House named “Theodore Roosevelt” might say “blah” or “blah, blah” in conversation with Assistant 1, which out of context could be considered by some to be outrageous, but only when a full statement appeared officially from the President of the United States, Roosevelt asserted, should that statement on any given issue be treated as reflecting the view of the President

In many ways, we can understand that approach; but it was one that would also mean that Roosevelt’s personal opinions were always to be considered NOT necessarily the same as the President’s policy view. Few in the chattering classes today, we know, would allow President Bush, Sen Clinton or Sen McCain that split “officialdom/personal” personality. In fact, it would be hard to imagine them even thinking they could lay down such ground rules.

So just how does Mr James know that speech reflects what Sen Obama “really thinks”? He may in fact “think” something rather differently in private: What’s he himself said “around the kitchen table” or elsewhere when conversing with people none of us have ever heard of? Thus that speech may reflect ONLY what he is prepared to state publicly, as presidential aspirant Sen Obama. No?

And also undiscussed is how perhaps there are also those (obviously unimportant) times certain “gaffes” and “soundbites” go largely unlooped by media:

…Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch…

Such as that paragraph, 21 minutes in. Actually, maybe that comment does reflect what Sen Condescending Obama believes? (Presumably, that those whites are mistaken, or just plain wrong, or misled. It couldn’t be that they’ve got a point?) In fact, given that he is willing to “really think” such publicly, one has to wonder what he “really thinks” privately?

Curiously, one doesn’t see Mr James or certain media “soundbiting” the likes of that inside what we are told is otherwise obviously so “thoughtful” a speech that it should probably be carved inside the Lincoln Memorial alongside the Gettysburg Address. Well, carved there temporarily that is, until work can commence on President Obama’s far larger presidential memorial about 1 minute after he takes the oath of office, January 20, 2009, of course.

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[*] One example. George W. Bush, March 17, 2003:

…we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty. And when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation…

MSNBC’s Howard Fineman, March 2, 2005:

…Transforming the region wasn’t the stated intent of the American-led invasion of Iraq; it was supposed to be about WMD and Al Qaeda…