I am not even going to try to add anything to the following words of Michael Reagan, the son of Ronald Reagan:
I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.
I was wrong!
Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my dad reborn; only this time he’s a she.
And what a she!
In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my dad left the scene.
This was Ronald Reagan at his best — the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as “The Speech,” which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.
Via Traction Control.
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Well, I heard The Speech when it was first made. I’ve heard it since. And Wednesday evening’s speech by Sarah Palin as not The Speech. It was good, very good, and in today’s climate of a debased, subliterate society, a political clime dominated by stumblebum, halting, lame speakers such as The Obamassiah, Sarah Palin’s ability to speak clearly, plainly, forcefully and compellingly–though no better than simple basic rhetorical competence–stands out as a lily in a field of dog feces.
BTW, Reagan’s rhetorical skills were mediocre for his day, as well… as I thought at the time. Seriously. But as simply competent–not great–musicians are “weapons of shock and awe” when compared to the mind-numbingly UNmusical crap of “top 40″ noise, competent rhetoricians make the usual political speaker sound like the plopping noise from a horse’s rear end they really are. Heck, Palin’s delivery of her speech–and although she had help from a fine spoeech writer, it was her speech, just as even Peggy Noonan admits the speeches she wroote for Reagan during his presidency were his speeches–was the best thing at the convention, an order of magnitude (that’s 10X) better than even Giuliani’s above average speech.
In order to find a speech “as good as” The Obamassiah’s convention speech (a little better, in fact, and no worse), in both content and delivery, one had to wait for Juan Mexicain’s speech last night. Common political speech fare. Not exactly bad, but not really worth expending much energy analysing or even thinking about.
But of course, the Mass Media Podpeople’s Hivemind never noticed the repetitive, monotonous, vapid, boring nature of Obama’s actual words in his convention speech or his poor delivery (my old–really old by now, if she’s even alive *heh*–high school speech teacher might have given Obama and McCain “C”s for their convention speeches, were she feeling particularly generous, but probably not). Why should they even be able to? The Hivemind lobotomizes Mass Media Podpeople as its first operation in creating a new bud of the Hivemind.
Amid such a malodorous miasma of political speech, Sarah Palin’s speaking abilities smell like a rose, so it’s no wonder even Michael Reagan thinks of a similar–more mature, more literate–rose that stood out amid a similar, though slightly less debased, atmosphere.
Palin’s content and delivery Wednesday evening–heck, her extemporaneous speech in the interview with Maria Bartiromo that aired August 29–was refreshingly competent persuasive public speaking, which in today’s society equates with a “home run”.
Disclaimer: Since I grew up half a century ago surrounded by genuine masters of public speaking (and even have a 40-year collection of “speeches” made by one of them in his prime), my standards may be a bit skewed. Still, it pains me to hear what usually passes for compelling speech (Obamassiah! Obamassiah! Obamassiah!) nowadays.
Very nice. David does have a point, though. I wrote a post stating that she hit a home run. I was referring to the fact that SOMEONE…ANYONE…took on the Democrats. I’m so tired of being walked on, sometimes I even think of running just to shut them up! Hey, I can dream, eh?
Who’s Afraid Of Sarah Palin? Oprah!
The Drudge Report had posted the fact that Oprah is refusing to interview Sarah on her program, so Oprah sent out her typical backstepping (backstabbing) response. I hope Sarah refuses her invitation AFTER she is Vice President!
Ok, first, sorry about the delay in responding… Been a hell of a few days. Second, you are right, David – When you put Palin and Reagan side by side, she simply does not measure up to his metric. That said, in my limited and still naive perspective, she is about as close as we are going to get to him in this time. You are right (again) – public speaking has basically boiled down to rabble-rousing, giving people what they want, bread and circuses, and generally catering to the smallest common denominator. Palin really did none of that. Did she perform the oratory masterpieces that Reagan was known for in his time? Not really. Did she put the supposed oratorical master (Obama) to shame, being something of a newbie herself to the crowd? Absolutely. Of course, given the honestly poor quality she was going up against, that would not really be too difficult.
), thought-out response. She may not really be Reagan, but Palin is probably the closest thing we are going to get for the time being.
Obama is a competent and surprisingly skillful speaker… to the crowds he speaks to. He gets them riled up, gets them energized, and gets them moving in a common direction. I find him distinctly painful to listen to, though, especially since I tend to think more than one step ahead in life.
At any rate, thanks for your educated (to be perfectly honest, I barely remember Reagan’s administration at all… but I think we are of separate generations