“More Political Babble”
David Olive
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
The year 2001 is six months away – and the political season is not far behind. Politics, the national pastime of us Filipinos, pumps the adrenaline of those throwing their hats into the political ring – and even those raring to make political campaigning a lucrative enterprise. Even now, the debate on lifting the ban on political advertisements has heated up – and has been the grist of many newspaper articles – and even editorials.
This book, “More Political Babble,” is a timely executive read for political observers to settle the fact once and for all that politics is a profession of lesser mortals – and for politicians to realize they have been found out to have “feet of clay” – if not mud.
Sub-titled “The Dumbest Things Politicians Ever Said,” the book of 244 pages should prove to be a real treat to worn out executives who want to get back at government bureaucrats who make their lives difficult. It has 16 sections, spiced with cartoons and boxed items for readability, and covering topics on the “campaign trail,” “Bill Clinton and the Stature Gap,” “That Whiff of Scandal,” “Better Left Unsaid,” and “Media Relations.”
A sampling of the book will describe it better.
On those who, this early, cast a covetous eye on politics, here’s a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.” Spot those early dreamers!
And beware of dirty tricks that will mushroom at every corner this forthcoming season. This bumper sticker was sported by supporters of a governor to underscore the reputation of his opponent: “Vote for the Crook. It’s important.”
Well, for those who will run and lose anyway, this advice is timely: “You will reach a point where you can only be sure of two votes – yours and your wife’s,“ a quote from former President Jimmy Carter.
We chastise ourselves for electing so-called nitwits in the legislature, but listen to the Americans:
“The bottom line is there have been a lot of nuts elected to the United States Senate,” according to Sen. Charles Grassley in 1994 on why Republicans should not oppose Senate nominee Oliver North. We have Oliver North’s in abundance here. And, if you believe press releases of our senators, take the advice of Walter Bagehot: “The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.” Better still, ask your parish priest, because he may agree with the chaplain who said: “No, I look at the senators, and I pray for the country,” when he was asked if he was praying for senators.
Our Philippines politics has much to say about the so-called “weaker sex,” and these quotes and other versions are in abundance in this book:
“Behind every successful man is a surprised woman – Mary Pearson, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson. Or surprised women?
What about women like Gennifer Flowers who said, “I feel I’m the person responsible for putting Bill Clinton in the White House.” She said this in 1993, asserting that her claim of an affair with Clinton gave him publicity points.
On sleeping habits of political leaders, this anecdote could be a familiar scene:
Governor?
Yeah?
It’s nine o’clock
Well, you’re going to be inaugurated in two hours.
Does that mean I have to get up?
This was an exchange between Michael Deaver and Ronald Reagan on the morning of Reagan’s first inauguration as president in 1981.
On lying, we have these quotes that seem uncannily familiar:
“I’m a politician, and as a politician I have the prerogative to lie whenever I want – Charles Peackock, ex-director of Madison Guaranty, the Arkansas savings and loan at the center of the Whitewater investigation in 1994, explaining why he lied about writing a check to help erase a Clinton gubernatorial debt.
Another form of exercise is this from French: “I have lied in food faith,” says French politician Bernard Tapie in 1995, after his sworn alibi crumbled in court.
Lying is old. Even classical satirist Jonathan Swift was quoted in the book saying: “Promises and pie crust are made to be broken.” American Eugene McCarthy agrees: “It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things people might remember.” We have out own “no talk no mistake” strategy.
Finally, on media. This quoted prayer by Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson could be used by the Palace:
Thank you, Lord, for a free press…But gracious Father, investigative reporting seems epidemic in an election year – its primary objective to defame political candidates…Eternal god, help these self-appointed “vacuum cleaner'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=vacuum%20cleaner">vacuum cleaner journalists.”
There are books that you read once and read again. They also come in handy during traffic. Most of all, they are a comfort when we are confronted with foibles and dumb actions of politicians. Give yourself a break. Grab this book.
Sunday, August 27, 2000
Sunday, August 20, 2000
Science (and art) of 'manufacturing' celebrities
“High Visibility”
Irving Rein, Philip Kotler,
Martin Stoller
NTC Business Books
What do actor Al Pacino, actress Alicia Silverstone, televangelist Jerry Falwell, cager Dennis Rodman and painter Claude Monet have in common? Apparently, not much if we look at their respective professions. But actually, they share one thing in common – they are a product of a conscious effort at making and marketing and professionals into celebrities. This is according to a book written by outstanding marketing gurus, “High Visibility.”
Pacino uses a battery of publicists every time he has a movie to promote. Silverstone made strategic choices in her career starting from her first commercial for Domino’s Pizza. Falwell smartly chose to project his name and not a forgettable corporation, Liberty University.
Rodman dyed his hair and had tattoos on his body to project a man “out of control.” And Monet (surprise!?) was transformed from an obscure painter to a world-renowned impressionist after the Art Institute of Chicago packaged 159 of his paintings into a blockbuster exhibit that drew almost a million spectators.
This book justifiably disclaims two things: one, it is not a “Hollywood-insider-tells-all” book; two, it is not devoted to the socio-psychological implications of being a celebrity.
It is actually one of the best marketing books that recently came out from the professors at Northwestern University – focused on an interesting subject: celebrity making. Every chapter proceeds from such subjects as “sculpting the image,” “visibility premium,” “celebrity industry,” “building blocks of transformation,” “delivering the image,” “the voice of visibility,” and “sustaining celebrity.”
The book is entertaining and engaging, because it removes the veil of mystique and voodoo in creating, transforming and marketing a celebrity. What the three authors have succeeded in doing is to discern “science” form “art” of creating a Pygmalion out of a promising or even an initially unimpressive professional.
Trust the three marketing gurus to give us an insightful account of this industry that has managed to be in the shadows simply because the practitioners want to maintain an “industry entry barrier” – a ploy to discourage new entrants.
A quick look at the authors telegraphs to us that this is no ordinary hodge-podge account of an industry made up of celebrity creators, talent managers, publicists, transformation experts, movie star lawyers, and image makers.
Philip Kotler is a familiar name to marketing strategists in the Philippines for his visits to this side of the world and for his “Marketing Management” book that is required reading in out MBA schools. Irving Rein and Martin Stoller are known globally as public communication, pop culture and visibility according to the book’s jacket.
Up till this nook, what makes a celebrity has not been defined. This, the three authors took the bull by the horns. They began by saying that the Oxford Dictionary is not much help with this definition: “a person of celebrity,” “a public character.” It’s a wonder how Oxford violates the first principle in defining something – that is, not to repeat the word.
Quoting The Celebrity Register, this definition was attempted: “A celebrity is a name which, once made by news, now makes by itself.” This is actually an illuminating and witty one-liner. And yet, marketing professors as they are, they offer this precise, yet prosaic, definition: “Celebrity is a person whose name has attention-getting, interest-riveting, and profit generating value.”
The two definitions depict our ambivalence about this interesting industry. It is both romance and science, emotion-rousing and revenue-raising, marketing dreams and selling reality. And yet, it will benefit both the practitioner and the would-be celebrity to know that this business indeed has its own “logic.”
One illuminating chapter is the book’s account of the evolution of the celebrity industry – more a discussion of phases than a chronicle of historical stages. It traces its growth from the “cottage industry stage” – where the celebrity aspirant’s backing comes from family and friends, propelled by his/her own self-training – to an “advanced industrialization stage” where the would-be celebrity can count on a complex organization of researchers, product planners, image builders and coaching professionals. Interesting is the “industry structure” constructed by the authors, showing allied industries that support and earn from celebrities.
It is a joy to read a marketing book spiced with tidbits and insights into the lives, strategies and astronomical incomes of “stars” – all familiar names in the movies, law, medicine, sports and politics. Do you need to read this book? Listen.
“Celebrityhood is not merely a reward unto its possessors. It also helps to meet the crucial public need for icons, role models and reference persons.” If you agree, read on: You – like me – may be tempted to try “manufacturing” a celebrity.
Irving Rein, Philip Kotler,
Martin Stoller
NTC Business Books
What do actor Al Pacino, actress Alicia Silverstone, televangelist Jerry Falwell, cager Dennis Rodman and painter Claude Monet have in common? Apparently, not much if we look at their respective professions. But actually, they share one thing in common – they are a product of a conscious effort at making and marketing and professionals into celebrities. This is according to a book written by outstanding marketing gurus, “High Visibility.”
Pacino uses a battery of publicists every time he has a movie to promote. Silverstone made strategic choices in her career starting from her first commercial for Domino’s Pizza. Falwell smartly chose to project his name and not a forgettable corporation, Liberty University.
Rodman dyed his hair and had tattoos on his body to project a man “out of control.” And Monet (surprise!?) was transformed from an obscure painter to a world-renowned impressionist after the Art Institute of Chicago packaged 159 of his paintings into a blockbuster exhibit that drew almost a million spectators.
This book justifiably disclaims two things: one, it is not a “Hollywood-insider-tells-all” book; two, it is not devoted to the socio-psychological implications of being a celebrity.
It is actually one of the best marketing books that recently came out from the professors at Northwestern University – focused on an interesting subject: celebrity making. Every chapter proceeds from such subjects as “sculpting the image,” “visibility premium,” “celebrity industry,” “building blocks of transformation,” “delivering the image,” “the voice of visibility,” and “sustaining celebrity.”
The book is entertaining and engaging, because it removes the veil of mystique and voodoo in creating, transforming and marketing a celebrity. What the three authors have succeeded in doing is to discern “science” form “art” of creating a Pygmalion out of a promising or even an initially unimpressive professional.
Trust the three marketing gurus to give us an insightful account of this industry that has managed to be in the shadows simply because the practitioners want to maintain an “industry entry barrier” – a ploy to discourage new entrants.
A quick look at the authors telegraphs to us that this is no ordinary hodge-podge account of an industry made up of celebrity creators, talent managers, publicists, transformation experts, movie star lawyers, and image makers.
Philip Kotler is a familiar name to marketing strategists in the Philippines for his visits to this side of the world and for his “Marketing Management” book that is required reading in out MBA schools. Irving Rein and Martin Stoller are known globally as public communication, pop culture and visibility according to the book’s jacket.
Up till this nook, what makes a celebrity has not been defined. This, the three authors took the bull by the horns. They began by saying that the Oxford Dictionary is not much help with this definition: “a person of celebrity,” “a public character.” It’s a wonder how Oxford violates the first principle in defining something – that is, not to repeat the word.
Quoting The Celebrity Register, this definition was attempted: “A celebrity is a name which, once made by news, now makes by itself.” This is actually an illuminating and witty one-liner. And yet, marketing professors as they are, they offer this precise, yet prosaic, definition: “Celebrity is a person whose name has attention-getting, interest-riveting, and profit generating value.”
The two definitions depict our ambivalence about this interesting industry. It is both romance and science, emotion-rousing and revenue-raising, marketing dreams and selling reality. And yet, it will benefit both the practitioner and the would-be celebrity to know that this business indeed has its own “logic.”
One illuminating chapter is the book’s account of the evolution of the celebrity industry – more a discussion of phases than a chronicle of historical stages. It traces its growth from the “cottage industry stage” – where the celebrity aspirant’s backing comes from family and friends, propelled by his/her own self-training – to an “advanced industrialization stage” where the would-be celebrity can count on a complex organization of researchers, product planners, image builders and coaching professionals. Interesting is the “industry structure” constructed by the authors, showing allied industries that support and earn from celebrities.
It is a joy to read a marketing book spiced with tidbits and insights into the lives, strategies and astronomical incomes of “stars” – all familiar names in the movies, law, medicine, sports and politics. Do you need to read this book? Listen.
“Celebrityhood is not merely a reward unto its possessors. It also helps to meet the crucial public need for icons, role models and reference persons.” If you agree, read on: You – like me – may be tempted to try “manufacturing” a celebrity.
Sunday, August 13, 2000
A ‘power salad’ of ideas: No to stale strategy
“The Invisible Touch”
Harry Beckwith
Warner Books 2000
If you are in the service industry, selling something intangible – the author calls it “invisible” – you sometimes wish you were in an industry that markets something concrete, palpable to the touch, and systematically reproduced in an assembly line. Why? Because such industry of “visibles” has color, scent, taste as is, therefore, an exciting and rewarding enterprise.
And those of us in the industry with invisible products – in securities market, insurance, investment banking, public relations, management consultancy, software design, etc. – should therefore be prepared to be in the gray world of being businesslike, bland, intellectual, and coolly professional.
Before you resign yourself to your colorless gray world, read this vibrant book by Harry Beckwith, “The Invisible Touch,” sub-titled The Four Keys to Modern Marketing.
That is because in this slim book of 232 pages, you will look at your business in a revolutionary way – alternately charmed, inspired and entertained by a marketing expert who gives you gems of insights and wisdom in clear, intelligent and engaging style.
You would hate glossing over any part of this book. There are no commercial pauses, in the first place, and you might miss an important point. Well, like an excellent marketing man that he is, he has made sure you get your hours worth. The sections are short, sweet, crisp and with just the right spice of wit and surprise – especially his one-liners at the end of the discussion of the four keys to modern marketing – price, brand, packaging and relationships.
These are just a few in a treasure chest'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=treasure%20chest">treasure chest of one-liners in the book.
On pricing specifically, time charges by consultants – he concludes: “Charge by your worth, not by the hour.” Hear ye, lawyers and accountants!
On branding, particularly on corporate names, listen to this: “Look for a name that people can see, smell, taste, feel or hear – or better yet, all four. Be a Red Pepper.”
He gives this conclusion after ringing rebuke to people who use pompous, kilometric, polysyllabic names – which, he says, are forgettable. His spiel on Apple as a corporate name is instructive to people enamored with high sounding names.
On packaging, especially for great firms who have succeeded in being unexciting and colorless, he dishes this advice: “Look as great as you are.” This is a concluding one-liner after only three pages of anecdotes about oranges sprayed with chemicals to look better and golf courses maintained by a million-dollar pool of horticulturists to keep them perpetually green.
The author is a believer in a beauty like poet John Keats – he who wrote this classic line: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” However, this 21st century writer says it differently: “Beauty has muscle. It seizes us; we cannot get away.”
Finally, on relationships, he advises companies to make the customer feel important. This is nothing new, except that Beckwith says it better and with an astonishing insight that gives a new dimension to a firm’s customer-driven philosophy.
Listen: “We feel most in the din. As the world grows bigger every day, our desire to feel important grows into a need.” And then he gives this refreshing conclusion: “Create an oasis.” That should ignite your imagination to explore ways to make you firm a refreshing corporate station. Sounds like Coke, or Pepsi – but, see, the author is talking about the service industry.
The “four keys” actually comprise the core of the book. But, the author has intended to give “warm up” exercises to the readers with three main preceding sections: “Research and Its Limits,” “Fallacies of marketing,” and “What is Satisfaction?”
By design of by accident, the author succeeds in getting one heated up in a running agreement or argument. When he dares say, “research supports mediocre ideas and kills great ones,” we could hear ourselves fiercely disagreeing. Bu then, when he counsels, “stop measuring client satisfaction and start increasing it,” we find ourselves nodding vigorously.
This book is not your ordinary management or marketing nook. It is not even written in the mold of Peter Drucker (of many books), Philip Kotler (marketing guru), and Theodore Levitt (renowned for they theory on “marketing myopia”).
It is an easy read, because it males you feel the author is speaking in a lively seminar, spicing up his ideas with anecdotes, wit, humor and surprises. That is his intention. Let’s hear him:
“The wise marketer looks for buffets filled with food for thought: the isolated events, curious behaviors, odd trends, and tiny bits of data, all of whose relevance is unclear. The marketer who can assemble a shrewd blend of this information can create a power salad: an idea, strategy, or tactic that changes the business.”
In this book, the author offers a “power salad” – with a justifiable assurance that it will lead us to a refreshing oasis of new strategies if not a brand new business frontier.
Harry Beckwith
Warner Books 2000
If you are in the service industry, selling something intangible – the author calls it “invisible” – you sometimes wish you were in an industry that markets something concrete, palpable to the touch, and systematically reproduced in an assembly line. Why? Because such industry of “visibles” has color, scent, taste as is, therefore, an exciting and rewarding enterprise.
And those of us in the industry with invisible products – in securities market, insurance, investment banking, public relations, management consultancy, software design, etc. – should therefore be prepared to be in the gray world of being businesslike, bland, intellectual, and coolly professional.
Before you resign yourself to your colorless gray world, read this vibrant book by Harry Beckwith, “The Invisible Touch,” sub-titled The Four Keys to Modern Marketing.
That is because in this slim book of 232 pages, you will look at your business in a revolutionary way – alternately charmed, inspired and entertained by a marketing expert who gives you gems of insights and wisdom in clear, intelligent and engaging style.
You would hate glossing over any part of this book. There are no commercial pauses, in the first place, and you might miss an important point. Well, like an excellent marketing man that he is, he has made sure you get your hours worth. The sections are short, sweet, crisp and with just the right spice of wit and surprise – especially his one-liners at the end of the discussion of the four keys to modern marketing – price, brand, packaging and relationships.
These are just a few in a treasure chest'; return true;" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 3px double; TEXT-DECORATION: none" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=22&k=treasure%20chest">treasure chest of one-liners in the book.
On pricing specifically, time charges by consultants – he concludes: “Charge by your worth, not by the hour.” Hear ye, lawyers and accountants!
On branding, particularly on corporate names, listen to this: “Look for a name that people can see, smell, taste, feel or hear – or better yet, all four. Be a Red Pepper.”
He gives this conclusion after ringing rebuke to people who use pompous, kilometric, polysyllabic names – which, he says, are forgettable. His spiel on Apple as a corporate name is instructive to people enamored with high sounding names.
On packaging, especially for great firms who have succeeded in being unexciting and colorless, he dishes this advice: “Look as great as you are.” This is a concluding one-liner after only three pages of anecdotes about oranges sprayed with chemicals to look better and golf courses maintained by a million-dollar pool of horticulturists to keep them perpetually green.
The author is a believer in a beauty like poet John Keats – he who wrote this classic line: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” However, this 21st century writer says it differently: “Beauty has muscle. It seizes us; we cannot get away.”
Finally, on relationships, he advises companies to make the customer feel important. This is nothing new, except that Beckwith says it better and with an astonishing insight that gives a new dimension to a firm’s customer-driven philosophy.
Listen: “We feel most in the din. As the world grows bigger every day, our desire to feel important grows into a need.” And then he gives this refreshing conclusion: “Create an oasis.” That should ignite your imagination to explore ways to make you firm a refreshing corporate station. Sounds like Coke, or Pepsi – but, see, the author is talking about the service industry.
The “four keys” actually comprise the core of the book. But, the author has intended to give “warm up” exercises to the readers with three main preceding sections: “Research and Its Limits,” “Fallacies of marketing,” and “What is Satisfaction?”
By design of by accident, the author succeeds in getting one heated up in a running agreement or argument. When he dares say, “research supports mediocre ideas and kills great ones,” we could hear ourselves fiercely disagreeing. Bu then, when he counsels, “stop measuring client satisfaction and start increasing it,” we find ourselves nodding vigorously.
This book is not your ordinary management or marketing nook. It is not even written in the mold of Peter Drucker (of many books), Philip Kotler (marketing guru), and Theodore Levitt (renowned for they theory on “marketing myopia”).
It is an easy read, because it males you feel the author is speaking in a lively seminar, spicing up his ideas with anecdotes, wit, humor and surprises. That is his intention. Let’s hear him:
“The wise marketer looks for buffets filled with food for thought: the isolated events, curious behaviors, odd trends, and tiny bits of data, all of whose relevance is unclear. The marketer who can assemble a shrewd blend of this information can create a power salad: an idea, strategy, or tactic that changes the business.”
In this book, the author offers a “power salad” – with a justifiable assurance that it will lead us to a refreshing oasis of new strategies if not a brand new business frontier.
Sunday, August 06, 2000
'The most moving thing in a speech is the logic'
“On Speaking Well”
Peggy Noonan
Regan Books
To speech writers of executives and political leaders, this book is a real find. In fact, executives and politicians should read it so they will know if their writers are doing their job well.
Indeed, the book is a real find. Ironically, it is not even displayed as part of the centerpiece of a specialty bookstore in Alabang. It is actually nestled at the bottom of a shelf. Fortunately, I read this book earlier in a clothbound edition titled, “Simply Speaking” sent from the United States.
Peggy Noonan, the author, may not be familiar to many of us here. It was she who wrote that inspired line, “A thousand points of light,” for them President George Bush. She is the same author that earned an unabashed endorsement from New Yorker: “When the subject is speech writing, the first name on every list Peggy Noonan.”
If one is to summarize the central point – and therefore the most useful tip – of this book, it is this: “The most moving thing in a speech if always the logic. It is never flowery and flourishes, it is not sentimental exhortations, it is never the faux poetry we’re all subjected to these days.”
As speech writer of former President Ronald Reagan, Noonan demolished the myth that Reagan is only a smooth talker. No, the speechwriter says. Reagan, always had something to say, and he said it very well.
In this book, the author gives us some snippets of the Reagan speeches that prove her point and – actually, some really became memorable.
One of the moving speeches was the one delivered by Reagan after the Challenger exploded in mid-air. It was a moment for sentiment. But Reagan had substance, not sentiment. These lines are in the book:
“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. 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 bounds of earth’ to touch the face of God.”
Was it a moving speech? Noonan asks. Yes, very. But moving because it was serious and logical, not sentimental, flowery or poetic.
If you have read Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, have been moved by Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death,” or have inspired by “this torch shall be passed to a new generation of Americans” you will know the reason beyond explaining it for its emotional contents.
The author says, these great speakers had something great to say in the first place.
Toward the latter part of this book, the author recounts a moving and spellbinding moment when Mother Theresa spoke before a group. The delivery was simple, to the point – but every point sank in, the book delivers a strong point: “Just be you” when you speak. The author ahs also dissected recent speeches. Bill Clinton, for example, has not been spared. When I heard Clinton’s first and second inaugurals, I really felt there was something missing. Noonan tells us: “A cavalcade of clichés. But the problem was not that it was written badly. It was though badly…
The book throws in a lot of tips to speakers and speech writers – from dealing with the “jitters” to dishing out humor, from giving a rousing toast to making a moving eulogy. Always, you get advice that comes from an excellent writer.
“Make friends with your audience” is a tip that overcomes “butterflies in the stomach” and instantly establishes rapport with the listeners who mush conclude that the speaker “cares for his subject.”
The book emphasizes that the speaker should select a subject he cares about. Otherwise, the intelligent audience will catch him faking it.
This book has bias for logic, for policy and for mastering the subject matter. The author even says: “You can break rule and do fine.” And yet, there is one non-negotiable point in speech writing as far as Peggy Noonan is concerned: “Without substance, the speech will perish.”
Peggy Noonan
Regan Books
To speech writers of executives and political leaders, this book is a real find. In fact, executives and politicians should read it so they will know if their writers are doing their job well.
Indeed, the book is a real find. Ironically, it is not even displayed as part of the centerpiece of a specialty bookstore in Alabang. It is actually nestled at the bottom of a shelf. Fortunately, I read this book earlier in a clothbound edition titled, “Simply Speaking” sent from the United States.
Peggy Noonan, the author, may not be familiar to many of us here. It was she who wrote that inspired line, “A thousand points of light,” for them President George Bush. She is the same author that earned an unabashed endorsement from New Yorker: “When the subject is speech writing, the first name on every list Peggy Noonan.”
If one is to summarize the central point – and therefore the most useful tip – of this book, it is this: “The most moving thing in a speech if always the logic. It is never flowery and flourishes, it is not sentimental exhortations, it is never the faux poetry we’re all subjected to these days.”
As speech writer of former President Ronald Reagan, Noonan demolished the myth that Reagan is only a smooth talker. No, the speechwriter says. Reagan, always had something to say, and he said it very well.
In this book, the author gives us some snippets of the Reagan speeches that prove her point and – actually, some really became memorable.
One of the moving speeches was the one delivered by Reagan after the Challenger exploded in mid-air. It was a moment for sentiment. But Reagan had substance, not sentiment. These lines are in the book:
“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. 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 bounds of earth’ to touch the face of God.”
Was it a moving speech? Noonan asks. Yes, very. But moving because it was serious and logical, not sentimental, flowery or poetic.
If you have read Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, have been moved by Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death,” or have inspired by “this torch shall be passed to a new generation of Americans” you will know the reason beyond explaining it for its emotional contents.
The author says, these great speakers had something great to say in the first place.
Toward the latter part of this book, the author recounts a moving and spellbinding moment when Mother Theresa spoke before a group. The delivery was simple, to the point – but every point sank in, the book delivers a strong point: “Just be you” when you speak. The author ahs also dissected recent speeches. Bill Clinton, for example, has not been spared. When I heard Clinton’s first and second inaugurals, I really felt there was something missing. Noonan tells us: “A cavalcade of clichés. But the problem was not that it was written badly. It was though badly…
The book throws in a lot of tips to speakers and speech writers – from dealing with the “jitters” to dishing out humor, from giving a rousing toast to making a moving eulogy. Always, you get advice that comes from an excellent writer.
“Make friends with your audience” is a tip that overcomes “butterflies in the stomach” and instantly establishes rapport with the listeners who mush conclude that the speaker “cares for his subject.”
The book emphasizes that the speaker should select a subject he cares about. Otherwise, the intelligent audience will catch him faking it.
This book has bias for logic, for policy and for mastering the subject matter. The author even says: “You can break rule and do fine.” And yet, there is one non-negotiable point in speech writing as far as Peggy Noonan is concerned: “Without substance, the speech will perish.”
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