 Originally Posted by Tricky
The main thing that people seem to fail to grasp,is that good speeches dont make a good leader!tony blair made endless "great speeches" but he was absolutely cack as a prime minister & never followed up any of his promises that he made in his speeches,actions speak far louder than words
Nor do rubbish orators make good leaders though...
Sorry ... couldn't resist ... it was pretty much the political talking gaffe of 2008 over here.
Now a bit of analysis of said gaffe from Sky News:
I'm sure Liam will hit back with some Cameron gaffe just to spite me or something, hehe.
But back to Brown - the man can't stand up and make a good speach. It's always clunky - he doesn't do self-deprecation - jokes are prepared and delivered in a stale, laborious fashion - he trots out the same old tired lines week-after-week-after-week in PMQ's (while ignored the point of PMQs - which is for the PM to answer questions, which aren't planted). The man can't even control a smile - when and where to use them, how to form one even.
Numerous times I've seen him at press briefings, or on PMQs, and he's smiling at the most inopportune moments, or when serious matters are being discussed - this past week he was grinning like an idiot at Cameron's PMQs on the sorry state of the economy - he'd be grinning about Cameron no doubt, but it's the juxtaposition of the smiling and the topic being discussed - just no Gordon ... no.
Blair was a much better speaker - but even he lost it towards the end - Blair's bloated pauses got beyond ridiculous that it took about eleven years for him to get a few sentences out, it was unbearable.
Mind you, when Blair was recently on The Daily Show, I thought he did quite well ... I wonder how many of the audience members had thought he was still the UK PM? That's not a diss, I'm genuinely wondering, as I remember a while back when Brown went to the USA at the same time as the Pope, they did vox pops and barely anyone had heard of Brown, let alone knew who he was - but they all knew the Pope of course - mind you, that's not exactly a level playing field, but still.
Anyway - gaffes are bound to happen, or there are going to be times when you're not on top of your game - but in response to that, it comes down to how you deal with the gaffe, or the troubled delivery.
They may be politicians, but they're still people, and standing up in front of not only a big crowd - but everyone watching on TV - is a scary-ass thing, and it's bound to get the better of even the best orators at some point. But equally, as a politician, you've got to get on with that (it's part of the job).
I don't mind teleprompters so much - just as long as you don't rely on it like it was your lifeblood, that if something does go wrong you most likely can fanagle your way around it, or shrug it off - not that I expect people to memorise whole speaches multiple times a week - I know I couldn't - not even the best actors could, nevermind a politician.
Anyway - thought I'd share that recent gaffe from the UK PM as we discuss America's new President, in relation to gaffes.
...
As for the video posted originally, specifically - he does flub quite a bit, and grounds to a halt almost - but - he does shrug it off, calls attention to it, and goes about excusing himself.
If he'd just barged on desperately without calling attention to it, then that would have been cringe-worthy, but instead it doesn't really play out that way in the video.
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