Bush's, uh, problem with public speaking

[rawstory]

Full story at The Raw Story, the liberal alternative to Drudge, at http://www.rawstory.com

Bush's problem with, uh, public speaking

By Justin Droms
RAW STORY COLUMNIST

Is he an idiot, or does he just play one on TV?

The debate about President Bush’s horrendous public speaking is sure to continue its invasion of American dinner tables and barstools after Dubya’s distracted stumble through his most recent White House press conference. The president’s verbal retardation was as apparent as ever, especially when asked if he felt he had “failed as a communicator” — not as a president, not as a leader, but as a communicator.

Ironically, in his response to accusations of ineffective and repetitive speaking, Bush predictably retreated to a formulaic tangent about his commitment to get the bad guys, punctuating it with anxious stammers, poor grammar, and his trademark deer-in-the-headlights stare. He finally conceded that, “Maybe I need to learn to communicate better.”

Gosh, do you really think so, George?

Because of the media’s meticulous coverage, public-speaking skills (or the lack thereof) play a large part in defining politicians’ identities, whether they like it or not. Look at what happened to good old Joe Lieberman, another politician whose dreadful oratory skills wreaked havoc on his political identity. Like Bush, late-night comedians lampooned him relentlessly, specifically for his droopy speaking style (one Conan O’Brien sketch had him dozing off mid-speech). The difference between the two men, however, is that Lieberman is obviously intelligent but leaves us doubting his passion, while Bush is obviously passionate but leaves us doubting his intelligence.

Bush’s blundering performance in that most recent press conference — as well as his awkward February interview with Tim Russert — brings up serious questions about his tunnel vision on relevant issues. His familiar tough-guy smirk and shoot-‘em-straight swagger have deteriorated into desperation to stay on message (which basically means infinite repetitions and combinations of the phrases “war on terror,” “stay the course” and “the American people”).

While presidents from Kennedy to Clinton often traded witty barbs with reporters during their frequent press conferences, Bush understandably shies away from media interaction and admittedly was “stumped” when asked about mistakes he had made since Sept. 11, according to an Associated Press report.

"Maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be,” replied the visibly stunned commander in chief, as he struggled to think of an acceptable answer. "I'm sure something will pop into my head here … but it hadn’t yet."

You can’t get hired at McDonald’s with a response like that.

[rawstory]

1. dyslexia?

I know this has been mentioned before, but does anyone get a real sense that Bush has dyslexia? It seems likely to me. Anyone here with dyslexia who can attest to similar public speaking snafus? I thought it had more to do with the written word.

[1gobluedem]

2. His public speaking

...is the written word -- everything is in front of him. He can't speak spontaneously or off the cuff at all.

[IrateCitizen]

3. Read "The Bush Dyslexicon" by Mark Crispin Miller...

... for an excellent analysis of Bush's speaking "style".

The interesting thing about listening to Bush speak is not to focus on the many things that make him sound like a bumbling idiot, but to focus on the few things on which he speaks very coherently. Those few things are, for the most part: vengance, retribution, war, destruction, etc. It is when Bush tries to speak about compassion, fairness, etc. that he starts fumbling over his words. But when speaking about anything involving revenge or violence, his eyes light up and he can be quite coherent.

It's a scary window into what little of a soul the man has, IMHO.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

4. Indeed, and consider all the lost opportunities they had...

...to bring dyslexia to the forefront of public debate. Dyslexic people aren't "dumb", they simply process information they read differently than others do. I'm not dyslexic, but I have a cousin who is.
Then again, the common conservative attitude is "bah! that's a a stupid liberal attitude. They're just dumb!"
I'm not surprised that they'd try to hide Bush's dyslexia if he actually has it. It's the way they do things.

[Lisa]

11. Bush is milking the public sympathy ...

... created by decades of work by progressives, trying to get people to see substance abuse and learning disabilities as ailments, NOT "moral failings" or "deserved punishment" (or laziness, or stupidity).

It's horribly ironic ... right-wingers who mock social democrats for "coddling bad people" simply turn around and slam anyone who criticizes poor l'il George (e.g. portraying Al Gore as an unfair bully for asking tough questions during the debate).

Meanwhile, Bush himself won't -- and can't -- admit to having problems, since the ultra-religious right-wingers would see that as a moral flaw. So he dances around, just hinting at it enough to get pity from the mainstream. He likes to have it both ways, doesn't he.

[redqueen]

5. Shame for the ages

America will suffer for this moron's failures for generations.

[amazona]

6. dyslexia doesn't make you slur

This is more than dyslexia. People who mispeak a lot and inadvertently come out with spoonerisms -- I am one of them -- just learn to deal with the fact that sometimes you'll say the exact opposite of what you meant to say or that you'll use the wrong name. You might even sometimes blank out for a minute. But you also know how to laugh it off and go on with what you're saying, precisely because you have a lifetime of putting a foot in your mouth. I'll never be a great public speaker, nor do I enjoy speaking in public, but when I have to, and when I flub, I know how to laugh it off. And, in his middle 50s, presumably Chimpy would have decades of experience at doing the same -- IF some kind of dyslexia was the cause of his problem.

When you have someone who is slurring, stumbling, and at times just plain free associating all sorts of meaningless phrases, you are not talking about any kind of verbal dyslexia or spoonerisms. You are talking about someone who is drunk, tranquilized, or otherwise under the influence. Sometimes we try too hard to overlook the obvious.

[newscaster]

7. Dyslexia is very possible but consider this....

Actor Tom Cruise is dyslexic but can memorize long passages of script for his movies and can say those lines perfectly.
Bush, I believe, cannot remember more than five or six words at a time. This is evident by the short sentences or even partial sentences he uses when speaking. He read a few words, says them out loud and then repeats. Thats why his sentences are not smooth and certainly not convincing. I get the strong suspicion he is read words but not their meanings. He has had a few key phrases burned into his brain and he uses those over and over ad nauseaum. But I don't believe he is fully away even of the meaning of those phrases.
Finally, I a certain the size of his usable vocabulary is quite small. He never uses ten dollar words either because he is afraid of blowing it in the pronunciation or he is unaware the word even exists.

[tigereye]

8. Bush and his father always appeared to me

to have some type of speech or neurological disorder. There are many of these. It would be interesting to see a speech professional"s analysis or that of a neurologist.

[loyalsister]

16. We need to stop misreading him

"Finally, I a certain the size of his usable vocabulary is quite small. He never uses ten dollar words either because he is afraid of blowing it in the pronunciation or he is unaware the word even exists."
Nope- I think it's part of his anti-intellectualism that exists in his Texas persona.
I think this "dumb" appearance is more a part of a sense of entitlement. He doesn't HAVE to learn things, he doesn't need to use big words. He's just fine the way he is. This is a function of not giving a shit what people think. It's more like bad manners. Not believing that as president he should present himself as a man who has prepared himself and learned what he needs to know to give the public a sense that he knows what the hell he's doing.
He doesn't need to do these things because he is the annointed one and god is guiding him. He makes decisions based on THAT- not information. He is living in a different reality in that sense.
His grandiosity is out of control and I think he pretty much knows it. He is trying to avoid letting it get the best of him. It will if he says too much. He can't say what he believes, so he has to try to come up with something that fits reality. It confuses him and he stutters.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Letterman compared bush to Porky last night

[redqueen]

10. Wow

I really need to start watching his show again.

[seemslikeadream]

12. Letterman showed a clip of bush studdering

and then a clip of Porky. It was very funny!

[Iceburg]

13. B*shs condition may be worse than any lay person could have guessed

Let's see if the media picks this up over the next few days

Origniator's name and location has be redacted (in keeping with the policies\habits of this administration)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: XXX
> Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 12:14 PM
> To: '[e-mail]'
> Subject: Bush's mysterious grounding
>
> Mr. Conason,
>
> I am a neurologist in XXXX. I've just read your excellent article on
> Bush's Guard service (thanks by the way for for your excellent book "Big
> Lies" which i enjoyed immensely). Ever since reading Bob Woodward's
> description (in Plan of Attack) of an unusual event in which Bush suddenly
> "began speaking as though in a foreign language" and looking
> confused...I've wondered if Mr. Bush suffers from temporal lobe epilepsy.
> The description Woodward gives sound very much like Mr. Bush had what's
> known as a "complex partial seizure". Woodward's further mention of a
> medication the president takes twice daily and the secrecy with which this
> info is guarded are also very suggestive : there are a number of
> anti-epileptic medicationstaken on a b.i.d. (ie twice daily) schedule. I
> would think that the stigma associated with epilepsy (often undeservedly
> so) would make it something Bush's advisors would hush up.
>
> Certainly the hard-drinking Bush would have been at risk for worsening
> this condition (alcohol lowers the seizure threshold) and having ANY type
> of seizures would be an ABSOLUTE loss of flying status...therefore
> explaining the otherwise inexplicable lack of interest the Guard showed in
> finding out why he was grounding himself, thereby wasting all that
> expensive training. It might also explain why he skipped his
> physical...wouldn't want the nasty "e-word" (epilepsy) in his file. For
> that matter, perhaps worsening seizure control was the ultimate reason he
> finally stopped drinking...by that time, however, he may well have had
> mesial temporal sclerosis...which would have perpetuated the seizures even
> in the absence of ongoing alcohol consumption.
>
> Furthermore, it might explain his habit of "early to bed' (sleep
> deprivation would put him at risk for further public seizures). There are
> a number of his personal traits that have been linked to temporal lobe
> epilepsy (his hyper-religiosity, his sometimes confused look, his frequent
> verbal mis-steps, ...perhaps even his avoidance of live interviews).
>
> I of course have no solid first hand evidence whatsoever of this, it's
> just something that occurred to me (as a Neurologist) while reading
> Woodward's book.
>
> Dr. XXXXXX

[sangh0]

14. It would also explain the Pretzel incident

.

[Iceburg]

15. Exactly ...

can you imagine if that had happened in public?

[truth2power]

17. Molly Ivins said that Bush isn't stupid.

She says it with a degree of certainty and I wonder if there's something she's not saying, such as that there's some medical condition.

I would put my money on psychomotor or temporal lobe epilepsy. that would explain a lot of things...the deer in the headlights look at times, the kind of purposeless and foolish verbal displays and, IMO this explains the pretzel incident better than anything else.

In any case, someone saying they were a doctor posted here a few days ago and said Bush probably is neurlogically impaired in some way. i'd bank on it.

[Iceburg]

18. This observation was made by a highly esteemed neurologist

i think this may be the real elephant in the room.
We'll see in a few days.

[CaptainMidnight]

19. GO HERE NOW:

http://prisonplanet.tv/articles/april2004/042504bushseizure.htm

CM

[seemslikeadream]

20. Oh my God oh my God

[doni_georgia]

21. No other source for this - story from really sketchy source n/t

[Malva Zebrina]

22. It is a disgrace and a shameful event when we have a president who is

so obviously inept at the English language and who has made it his pride that he does not read, nor is he interested in any intellectual pursuits. His pathetic and embarrassing performance over the past three and a halfyears, is totally embarrasing

What is the most pathetic is that the media actually thinks this pathetic display of ignorance is "endearing"

This is what our country has sunk into--a morass of stupidity where stupidity is actually excused, and indeed, actually admired as a "leadership" quality.

How did we arrive at this improbable and totally embarrassing situation with an insane and stupid man at the helm, murdereing thousands of people, using lies to do so and, incredibly being accoladed for his "down to earth" stupidity, and his "Churchillian leadership?

How did this ever happen? HOw can fifty percent of American people actually believe this crappy propaganda?

They do. That is absolutely incredible--while our young people are dying in Iraq , they believe George the coward and the AWOL commander in chief, has sent them there to "defend our freedoms"
]
How can fifty percent of our people believe this crap coming from his propaganda ministry?

[baldguy]

23. Its not just that he doesn't know how to speak.

He can't articulate the policy positions that his administration advocates. Even I could state them better than he does.

Hell, my 12-yr-old niece could state them better than he does.

Bush is a disastrous, pathetic embarrassment as a President.