Why are the Papaya running dogs so afraid of the Democrats winning the US Presidential Elections? Cos they support democracy and human rights, which the dog owners abhor? How lame can these dogs go? 
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Aug 31, 2008
On words
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Riding on a wave of oratory
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Janadas Devan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
</TD><TD vAlign=bottom>
Senator Barack Obama;s style is more Churchillian than Clintonlan. -- PHOTO: AP
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->There is no doubt that great speeches move people: Franklin Roosevelt during the darkest days of the Great Depression, Winston Churchill during World War II, Jawaharlal Nehru, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy - the list, even restricting oneself to the English-speaking world, is endless.
The Democrats have just finished with their convention. Rhetorically, they hit home runs.
Senator Hillary Clinton spoke well, Mr Bill Clinton spoke better - and Senator Barack Obama hit the rhetorical ball out of the cavernous stadium where he spoke.
By comparison, this week's Republican convention is likely to be a snooze, though Senator John McCain's surprising choice of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as running mate might spice things up a little. The Republicans are curiously bereft of gifted speakers.
Indeed, almost all the great American political orators of the past 50 years have been Democrats: Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, the Kennedy brothers, Hubert Humphrey, Mario Cuomo, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Obama. About the only Republican one can include in this list is Ronald Reagan.
But if oratory is all that decisive in politics, how come Democrats have lost seven of the last 10 presidential races? Of the races the Republicans won, only two were won by the silver-tongued Reagan. Three were won by the tongue-tied Bushes and two by the plastic Richard Nixon.
Of course, two of the three races the Democrats did win from 1968 to 2004 were won by the eloquent Mr Clinton. And in the preceding 10 presidential races from 1928 to 1964 - when Democrats did better, winning seven - five were carried by orators: Roosevelt (four) and Kennedy (one).
Perhaps Democrats win presidential races only when they have orators at the top of the ticket. In which case, Mr Obama should be a shoo-in this year. Poor Mr McCain can barely use a teleprompter, let alone deliver a barnburner.
But that would be an over-hasty conclusion. The fact is there are different oratorical styles and none is always effective in all circumstances.
The Churchillian style, for instance, can be effective in war - 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' - but not necessarily in peacetime.
The Clintonian style can be effective in peacetime - 'Nobody has his ability to translate economic wonkery into plain, forceful English,' said The New York Times' Paul Krugman - but not necessarily in wartime. Mr Obama's style is more Churchillian than Clintonian.
He soars. He lifts people's eyes to sunlit uplands. He impresses his vision on his listeners. He speaks of an America as it should be, not as it is: 'There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America.'
Consequently, people feel good listening to him. Their hearts beat faster, their heads spin, their knees go soft. And then, the morning after, they wonder what whatever he said in his speech had to do with the price of beans.
They never wondered when they heard Mr Clinton. He spoke of little else but the price of beans. He claimed to 'feel your pain' - and, amazingly enough, a great part of his effectiveness as a communicator did in fact derive from his ability to convince people that he felt their pain.
'This is about you,' he would say in his campaigns, before rattling off a string of mind-numbing statistics. And because he had a knack for explaining complicated things in simple English without condescension, he did convince people 'this is about you'.
The lip-biting, the sense of timing, the softly modulated cadences, the large physical presence - these were essential props in the performance. But the real hook in his rhetorical strategy was always: 'This is about you.'
'This election has never been about me; it's about you,' Mr Obama said last Thursday, reprising the Clinton line without acknowledgement. But saying it is not the same as performing it, even in speech. Mr Obama was more specific in his acceptance speech than he usually is - he promised to go through the tens of thousands of pages of the federal budget, line by line, looking for waste - but the specificity was swallowed by the grandiloquence. His instinct always is to try to move more than convince.
Oratory has always had these two styles. In the time of Cicero, more than 2,000 years ago, there were the so-called 'Attic' and 'Bacchic' styles. The Attic stressed restraint, simplicity of expression and logic (the style of Julius Caesar); and the Bacchic, elaboration, richness of expression and ornamentation (the style preferred by Cicero).
Six of the 10 presidential races that Democrats have won over the past 80 years were won by Attic orators: Clinton and Roosevelt. The latter was capable of the odd Bacchic riff ('Nothing to fear but fear itself') but he was in essence a 'this is about you' politician. Only one race was won by a Bacchic orator: Ich bin ein Berliner Kennedy.
Mr Obama may be the next, but Bacchic frenzy has not had a particularly good record in American politics. [email protected]
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Aug 31, 2008
On words
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Riding on a wave of oratory
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Janadas Devan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
Senator Barack Obama;s style is more Churchillian than Clintonlan. -- PHOTO: AP
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->There is no doubt that great speeches move people: Franklin Roosevelt during the darkest days of the Great Depression, Winston Churchill during World War II, Jawaharlal Nehru, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy - the list, even restricting oneself to the English-speaking world, is endless.
The Democrats have just finished with their convention. Rhetorically, they hit home runs.
Senator Hillary Clinton spoke well, Mr Bill Clinton spoke better - and Senator Barack Obama hit the rhetorical ball out of the cavernous stadium where he spoke.
By comparison, this week's Republican convention is likely to be a snooze, though Senator John McCain's surprising choice of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as running mate might spice things up a little. The Republicans are curiously bereft of gifted speakers.
Indeed, almost all the great American political orators of the past 50 years have been Democrats: Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, the Kennedy brothers, Hubert Humphrey, Mario Cuomo, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Obama. About the only Republican one can include in this list is Ronald Reagan.
But if oratory is all that decisive in politics, how come Democrats have lost seven of the last 10 presidential races? Of the races the Republicans won, only two were won by the silver-tongued Reagan. Three were won by the tongue-tied Bushes and two by the plastic Richard Nixon.
Of course, two of the three races the Democrats did win from 1968 to 2004 were won by the eloquent Mr Clinton. And in the preceding 10 presidential races from 1928 to 1964 - when Democrats did better, winning seven - five were carried by orators: Roosevelt (four) and Kennedy (one).
Perhaps Democrats win presidential races only when they have orators at the top of the ticket. In which case, Mr Obama should be a shoo-in this year. Poor Mr McCain can barely use a teleprompter, let alone deliver a barnburner.
But that would be an over-hasty conclusion. The fact is there are different oratorical styles and none is always effective in all circumstances.
The Churchillian style, for instance, can be effective in war - 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' - but not necessarily in peacetime.
The Clintonian style can be effective in peacetime - 'Nobody has his ability to translate economic wonkery into plain, forceful English,' said The New York Times' Paul Krugman - but not necessarily in wartime. Mr Obama's style is more Churchillian than Clintonian.
He soars. He lifts people's eyes to sunlit uplands. He impresses his vision on his listeners. He speaks of an America as it should be, not as it is: 'There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America.'
Consequently, people feel good listening to him. Their hearts beat faster, their heads spin, their knees go soft. And then, the morning after, they wonder what whatever he said in his speech had to do with the price of beans.
They never wondered when they heard Mr Clinton. He spoke of little else but the price of beans. He claimed to 'feel your pain' - and, amazingly enough, a great part of his effectiveness as a communicator did in fact derive from his ability to convince people that he felt their pain.
'This is about you,' he would say in his campaigns, before rattling off a string of mind-numbing statistics. And because he had a knack for explaining complicated things in simple English without condescension, he did convince people 'this is about you'.
The lip-biting, the sense of timing, the softly modulated cadences, the large physical presence - these were essential props in the performance. But the real hook in his rhetorical strategy was always: 'This is about you.'
'This election has never been about me; it's about you,' Mr Obama said last Thursday, reprising the Clinton line without acknowledgement. But saying it is not the same as performing it, even in speech. Mr Obama was more specific in his acceptance speech than he usually is - he promised to go through the tens of thousands of pages of the federal budget, line by line, looking for waste - but the specificity was swallowed by the grandiloquence. His instinct always is to try to move more than convince.
Oratory has always had these two styles. In the time of Cicero, more than 2,000 years ago, there were the so-called 'Attic' and 'Bacchic' styles. The Attic stressed restraint, simplicity of expression and logic (the style of Julius Caesar); and the Bacchic, elaboration, richness of expression and ornamentation (the style preferred by Cicero).
Six of the 10 presidential races that Democrats have won over the past 80 years were won by Attic orators: Clinton and Roosevelt. The latter was capable of the odd Bacchic riff ('Nothing to fear but fear itself') but he was in essence a 'this is about you' politician. Only one race was won by a Bacchic orator: Ich bin ein Berliner Kennedy.
Mr Obama may be the next, but Bacchic frenzy has not had a particularly good record in American politics. [email protected]
