I must confess I wasn’t thrilled when I heard President Obama’s Tuesday night speech on the Gulf oil disaster.
But today, when I actually read the full speech, I thought much better of it.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? As speechwriters, we compose some mighty fine prose, but sometimes “between the idea and the reality,” as T.S. Eliot wrote, “falls the shadow.” Our speakers let us down in the delivery department.
However, Obama did deliver one idea, near the end of the speech, I initially thought was odd. Turns out it wasn’t.
The President refers to the successes of World War II (the country quickly mobilizes to manufacture enough tanks and planes) and the Apollo space program (the country succeeds in meeting JFK’s call to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade), as examples of what Americans can do when we set our minds to conquering challenges some call, “too big and too difficult,” in the President’s words.
Why, I wondered, did Obama hark back to things that occurred so long ago? After all, WW II ended 65 years ago and man first walked on the moon in 1969. Like, okay, but what have you done for me lately?
And then, in a conversation with my very smart husband, it dawned on me. There are no recent examples of what we’ve done as a people on a grand scale that match either of those two achievements – saving the world or putting a man on the moon. If you want to give inspirational examples of what Americans can accomplish when they come together with a mission, you will have to look to the last century. Yikes.
As my husband helpfully pointed out, these two accomplishments were achieved under two Democratic presidents with vision and courage. I’m not sure Obama possesses these to the extent we hoped, but the Republicans and Democrats who preceded him certainly did not. Not Nixon (the opening of China was not big or grand enough and gets trumped by Watergate anyway), not Ford nor Carter, Bush 41, Clinton nor Bush 43 (who missed the opportunity presented by 9/11 to rally Americans to end dependence on Mid-East oil and focus our time and money on the R & D required to develop alternate energy sources).
Reagan came closest to having and expressing a larger vision. I believe he identified with the aspirations of the “common man,” as did speechwriter Peggy Noonan who wrote beautiful and powerful remarks for him: “Mr. Gorbachev – tear down this wall” in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate; “We will never forget them nor the last time we saw them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God,’” on the Challenger explosion; and “These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent…” at Normandy on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.
What I believe about speechwriting applies to all good speeches – whether given by a president, a business leader or the head of a non-profit. A good speech must call its audience to embrace a cause larger than itself. When it does, it can inspire the audience to act in a way that furthers that cause.
All human beings share common needs and aspirations. Today, we share lots more. “To see the earth as it truly is,” Archibald MacLeish wrote, “small and blue and beautiful/in that eternal silence where it floats/is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together/brothers in that bright loveliness…/brothers who know now they are truly brothers.”
The collapse of an American investment bank on September 15, 2008, triggers a meltdown in the global financial system and a worldwide economic and jobs crisis from which we’re still trying to recover. An oil spill in the Gulf destroys an ecosystem, impacting everything from the price of oil to the price and availability of fish. Ash spewing from a volcano in Iceland disrupts air travel and compromises the vitality of airlines around the world. And debts Greece cannot pay de-stabilize the EU and the euro.
A president in tune with himself and the world around him can capture and speak to these commonalities, to all that we share in this interdependent world.
So, is it a lack of “the vision thing” that prevents our presidents – and the business, education and government leaders we write for – from calling on their audiences to embrace the big idea, the hard but noble thing, the cause larger than themselves? Perhaps.
The good news is that speechwriters have a positive role to play in this area. Speechwriters are often default policy-makers. Many speakers are unclear about what they want to say. Speakers want us to bring clarity, direction and purpose to a talk. They are looking for a draft to react to.
Use the power you have. Mold your speech around a common human purpose. Put that big idea in your speech draft. See if it flies.
You’ll be doing something important for yourself, your speaker and his or her audiences. The world will be a better place and it will make you happy.
What could be better?
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What could be better? Not much!
In this time of a sluggish economy, high unemployment, shattered aspirations and personal disillusionment on many levels, the gulf oil spill is just one more source of discouragment. I think people are looking for goals and challenges to work toward, as individuals and as communities. Someone has to inspire us!