blogger interrupted

The mocking of Barack Obama’s oratory has been standard since the primary.  Worked pretty well for Hillary, no?  So why is it such a standard talking point in the Republican Party?  And in John McCain’s campaign?  Why is giving a good speech somehow a bad thing?

Ronald Reagan was an orator.  Not a particularly good one, but an orator nonetheless.  He had some good lines, some good one-liners.  They worked.  They were nice.  They even managed to be useful.

But why is oratory suddenly evil and evidence of How Barack Hates America?  

Oratory is a historically recognized skill, and used to be a requirement for the American president.  Here’s one definition.  

1. skill or eloquence in public speaking: The evangelist moved thousands to repentance with his oratory.

2. the art of public speaking, esp. in a formal and eloquent manner.

What the hell is wrong with that?

Abraham Lincoln was an orator, to the point someone killed him for it.  So was George Washington.  And Jack Kennedy.  And Franklin Roosevelt.  

Oration has taken on a new theme with the advent of black America’s entry into American mainstream society.  The preacher’s voice is often called upon, deep from the depths of the slave tradition, through the churches, the chain gangs, and the civil rights march.  MLK channeled more than black America - he channeled Shakespeare, Thoreau, Ghandi, Churchill, he channeled them all.  In his spoken word.  Is that bad?

And then there’s the immigrant experience, through which oratory found another voice.  That of the ethnic pride of having gotten to America, period.  Let alone succeeding.  Mario Cuomo once embodied the measure of Democratic Party oratory, the sounds, smells, even the sweat of the Lower East Side of Manhattan sang through the lines of his speeches, as if Frank Sinatra had entered our consciousness through another door, bearing a bowl of pasta and a side helping of dreams.

There’s the oratory of the blue blooded enriched, who at one point in their privilege, realized a responsibility, and gave it voice.  That of the Kennedys, the Roosevelts, the people who took what America gave them, and gave it right back.  It staggers the mind to imagine a single such American doing so today, but it once was the measure of blue-blood greatness.   A measure of privilege’s pride.

And then there’s the oratory of Barack Obama, who seems to straddle them all.  The immigrant penniless.  The slave enchained.  The privileged giving back.  And the America we all wish for, singing forth, crying out at how far we need to go, but yet, celebrating how far we’ve come.  

What’s wrong with that again?

Popularity: 5% [?]