Because we live in a democracy founded on freedom of expression, it is important that our leaders be skilled public speakers.  The art of public speaking dates back to the Iliad and the Odyssey.  Theories of that art have been written by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Erasmus, and Kenneth Burke, to name just a few.  We deepen that theory whenever we examine public speech to determine why it was effective or ineffective.  Today, I want to undertake that task by looking at the Presidential speaking of George Bush.

 But first a little background.  Neither George Bush nor his father, Prescott, were born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  Prescott was raised in Ohio, graduated from Yale, served in an artillery unit in World War I, became a business manager in St. Louis, and was soon known for his trouble shooting abilities.  When he was promoted to a senior position at U. S. Rubber, Prescott Bush settled his family of seven in Greenwich, Connecticut.  In 1952, after his son was already established in Texas, he won a special election and was re-elected in 1956 to a full term.  George Bush was an heir to the progressive agenda within the Republican Party is traceable to Teddy Roosevelt.  In his autobiography, Looking Forward, he admits that his father had "a powerful impact on the way" he came to view the world.  Prescott Bush retired from the Senate in 1962, the year his son George began his political life as Republican Chairman of Harris County, Texas.

While George Bush was in his senior year at Phillips Academy in Andover, Pearl Harbor was bombed.  Barely had Bush received his diploma than he signed up to became the Navy's youngest fighter pilot in World War II, distinguishing himself in battle and being rescued by the U.S. submarine just after he was shot down by the Japanese.  As in the case of John Kennedy, this war record would serve Bush well when it came to building credibility in the political world.  After the war, Bush enrolled at Yale where he served as captain of the baseball team, losing twice in the NCAA finals, but graduating in three years, Phi Beta Kappa.   In the summer of 1948, Bush went to work for Dresser Industries first as an equipment clerk in Odessa, Texas, then as a salesman in California until 1950 when Dresser transferred him to Midland, Texas.  Bush left Dresser to set up Bush-Overby Oil Development Company, which bought royalties on oil prospects.  At twenty-seven, Bush was an entrepreneur meeting a payroll, an experience he would not let audiences forget.  By 1952, Bush was merged in a deal with Hugh Liedtke, who eventually ran Pennzoil.  When their company, Zapata Petroleum, made a killing in the new enterprise of off shore oil drilling, Bush moved to Houston where the operation was headquartered.  There he entered Republican politics.

A decade later, he won the U.S. Senate nomination.  Bush's opponent in November was incumbent Ralph Yarborough, a liberal Democrat who accused Bush of being the "darling of the John Birch Society."  In the face of Lyndon Johnson's overwhelming victory, Bush did remarkably well just to keep the race close.

Two years later, he was elected to Congress and became the first freshman named to the House Ways and Means Committee since Thaddeus Stevens.  But his first term also led to his first crisis when he decided to support the Open Housing bill of 1968.  When he returned to Houston to explain his vote, he was roundly booed.  In response he paraphrased the sentiments of Edmund Burke expressed at Bristol: "Your representative owes you not only his industry, but his judgment and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."  Bush's speech converted many in the all white audience and was responsible in part for his unopposed re-election later that year in a district that would come to be represented by Barbara Jordan in 1970 when Bush decided to run for Senate again.

By 1970, Ralph Yarborough was an unpopular senator ripe for the picking.  But the Democrats threw Bush a curve.  Instead of Yarborough, they nominated a wealthy moderate conservative business executive named Lloyd Bentsen.  Bush lost a very close race.  For his effort, he found himself nominated by Richard Nixon to be Ambassador to the United Nations, a post that would provide invaluable foreign policy experience.  Bush faced several mideastern crises, the expulsion of Taiwan from the U. N., and the invasion of East Pakistan by India.

When Nixon won his 49 state landslide in 1972, he shook up his administration and asked Bush to chair the National Republican Party.  The shift from international affairs to political affairs was intensified by the Watergate Crisis which soon began its lengthy course.  The crisis preoccupied Bush until he asked Nixon to resign in August of 1974.  The new president, Gerald Ford returned Bush to the world of foreign affairs naming him ambassador to China.

While Bush served in China, the Watergate crisis led to the demise of William Colby as head of the Central Intelligence Agency.  The President nominated Bush to take the open position.  Since he was a politician and not from the CIA, senate Democrats complained that appointing Bush would further damage the Agency which had been kept out of politics.  During the hearings over his nomination, Bush promised not to seek or accept the Vice President nomination should he be approved.  Once at the CIA, Bush succeeded in improving morale and developing a loyal following that would serve him subsequent political campaigns.  At the time, however, Ford's loss of the presidency to Jimmy Carter meant the end of Bush's tenure at the CIA.

Out of public office for the first time in years, Bush began to assess his chances of winning the Republican nomination.  He accepted speaking engagements at Republican fundraisers across the country throughout 1977, 1978, and 1979.  During this period Bush first employed the speechwriting and speech coaching process.  In January of 1978, I met with Bush at his home in Houston and became one of his consulting speechwriters.  The remainder of this study is supported by my personal experiences with Bush, for whom I continued to consult until his loss of the presidency in 1992.  He also relied on Raymond Price who wrote Nixon's very effective acceptance in 1968, and Victor Gold, who had written for Agnew.  While each of us did entire speeches independent of the others, we had diverse strengths that were sometimes combined for major speeches.  My charge was to take researched issue positions and craft them into the body of the speeches; Price worked on style; Gold worked on humor and political "zingers."  During this run for the presidential nomination Bush was also helped by his literate and witty press secretary Pete Teely.  In a speech Bush delivered during the Pennsylvania primary that I had helped to write, Teely inserted a line that dubbed Reagan's budget proposals "voodoo economics."  The joke would cost Bush later.

Throughout 1980 I fought for more organization in speeches, which Bush resisted.  All of us argued that Bush should rehearse speeches more and stick to the text, but rehearsing bored him and he believed it to be unmanly.  Furthermore, texts were not Bush's favorite format; he preferred speaking extemporaneously from notes as he had done when he campaigned for office in Texas.  Ironically, the speeches for which Bush received plaudits were delivered from texts and heavily rehearsed.
Bush focused on the substance of his speeches.  Prior to 1980, he and I often reworked speeches together as his Lear jet sped from one speaking event to another.  The system seemed to be working well when Bush became known as the issue-candidate and won the Iowa caucuses.  His decision to abandon issues to talk about his momentum ("the big mo") in New Hampshire, hurt his candidacy.  But a worse blow was delivered when just before a one-on-one debate with Reagan, the aged movie star grabbed a microphone and upstaged Bush by arguing that all GOP candidates should participate in the debate.  The move revived Reagan's flagging campaign.  On May 20, despite Bush's win in Michigan, Reagan cinched the nomination with a win in the Nebraska and Oregon primaries.  Reagan selected Bush as his running mate after Ford was eliminated because of talk of a "co-presidency."  Ironically, Bush's eloquent speech to the convention on Wednesday night when he was sure he would not be the nominee helped convince Reagan of Bush's potential.

Bush was an active vice president thrust to the fore when Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981.  He worked behind the scenes as president of the Senate to help to pass the Reagan budget package and tax reform bills.  He played a major role in developing foreign policy and eliminating government regulations.  He headed major anti-drug efforts.  He travelled to over 75 countries to represent the President in negotiations or at funerals.  He spent a good deal of time at political fundraisers for Republican candidates.  In 1984 he performed above press expectations in a "no win" vice presidential debate with Geraldine Ferraro.

But he assiduously avoided the taint of disloyalty to Reagan.  This policy contributed to what became known as the "whimp" factor which seriously hurt his credibility in the early going in the 1988 presidential contest.  Bush overcame this disability in several ways.  First, Roger Ailes became a media consultant who taught Bush to "counterpunch."  Ailes advised Bush to wait to be hit first and then to counterpunch in debates, interviews, and press conferences.  The results of this policy were mainly effective, as in the Houston Republican nominees debates when Bush turned to former Governor DuPont and said, "Let me help you with that, Pierre."  DuPont prefers to be called Pete.  But in one significant instance the results were mixed.  On the night of Reagan's last State of the Union Address, January 20, 1988, Dan Rather interviewed Bush live on the CBS Evening News.  Bush had been led to believe the interview would cover many issues.  Instead, Rather ran a prepared story on the Iran-Contra scandal that implicated Bush.  Bush defended himself and asked that Rather move on.  Rather refused and Bush insulted Rather by bringing up an incident in which Rather had walked off the set.  Rather abruptly cut off the interview offending many viewers.  Some critics believe that Bush's poor showing in the ensuing Iowa caucuses was due in part to his unpresidential performance in the Rather interview.

Bush revived his presidential candidacy in New Hampshire by running negative advertising against the poll leader, Senator Bob Dole, and by appealing to voters in a more down to earth manner.  The next primaries came in the South on "Super Tuesday," where campaign manager Lee Atwater put together the biggest single victory in terms of delegates that any nominee had ever achieved.  Bush was effectively nominated on that night.  Nonetheless, Bush's difficulties with the public continued into the summer of 1988.  When Michael Dukakis finished his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in July, he led Bush by fifteen to seventeen percent in most opinion polls.  Republican strategists believed that Bush's only hope for victory was to deliver "the speech of his life" in accepting the Republican nomination.  Bush and his writers, who included Peggy Noonan for this one effort, did not disappoint them.  After his acceptance speech, he led Dukakis by around 10 percent in most polls and never looked back.

The turn around in the polls indicates that Bush's acceptance was one of the most effective in the short run.  It's immediate success can be explained by several factors.  First, Dukakis more general speech left him open to redefinition by Bush.  In one of the most effective passages in the acceptance, Bush compared himself to Dukakis on the issues in an effort to coalesce a majority of support:

Should public school teachers be required to lead our children in the pledge of allegiance?  My opponent says no -but I say yes.  Should society be allowed to impose the death penalty on those who commit crimes of extraordinary cruelty and violence?  My opponent says no -- but I say yes.
Identification also proved effective in personal terms as Bush for the first time spoke about himself and his approach to government with emotion: "I want a kinder, gentler nation."  He then specifically identified with segments of his audience:

This is America: the Knights of Columbus, the Grange, Hadassah, the Disabled American Veterans, the Order of Ahepa, the Business and Professional Woman of America, the union hall, the Bible study group, LULAC, Holy Name -- a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

The press did not notice that Peggy Noonan had paraphrased her "thousand sparks of light" from Reagan's 1988 State of the Union Address.

Third, the speech contained humor that was both self deprecating and effective in poking fun at the Democrats.  Bush reinforced the humor by using Clint Eastwood like phrasing particularly when it came to domestic issues.  "Read my lips, no new taxes," brought cheers from the audience, but would later compromise Bush's presidency.

Finally, the style of the speech was entertaining and often dazzling.  It not only suited Bush, it demonstrated the importance of tropes and figures in modern rhetoric.  Repetition, periodic structure, antithesis, alliteration, metaphor, and allegory provided subliminal support for the message.
No Bush presidential speech would prove as effective as this effort.  In fact, Bush would be marked as a rhetorical failure by the end of his re-election campaign.  He would also be rightly criticized for his indifferent performance in the three presidential debates of 1992.  1988 was a different story.  In the two debates, Bush, unlike Dukakis, was warm and humorous.  Though Dukakis was more specific, Bush was effective in listing the accomplishments of the Reagan/Bush administration and in labelling Dukakis a liberal.  In fact, as Halford Ryan points out, "Bush would spend as much time in defining what he was not, which was Dukakis, as in defining what he was."  On election night, Bush scored a sound victory.

RHETORICAL PRACTICES
Bush had little training in public speaking though he seems to have learned to write prose well enough at Phillips Academy and Yale to have achieved high academic honors.  Bush's political public speaking ability was learned on the hustings.  When he took advantage of logographers and rehearsals, he could be formidable.  When he spoke extemporaneously, he often mangled syntax and used incredibly cryptic phrases.

Like presidents before him, Bush assembled a speechwriting staff at the White House that consisted of approximately five fulltime writers and a dozen researchers.  But more than most presidents, Bush was often dissatisfied with the results of in house writing.  Thus, outside consultants such as Noonan, Gold, Price, Ailes and I were often consulted on major speeches.  We made a conscious effort to make Bush sound Lincolnesque, particularly regarding the Gulf War.  Ailes also worked with Bush on delivery, getting him to slow down and lower his pitch.

The main problem with Bush's presidential rhetoric was Bush himself.  He disdained rehearsal.  His love of substance often caused him to neglect style, particularly in speeches he delivered from the Oval Office to television audiences.  One of the most serious mistakes Bush made was to insist that his press conference occur during the day.  His press conferences were tremendous demonstrations of sagacity, wit, and humanity.  But he did not want to appear to be imitating Reagan, so he refused to hold his press conferences at night when all of the nation could have seen them.  When he agreed to a prime time press conference in June of 1992, the networks refused to cover it claiming it was a political event.  This strategic error contributed to bringing Bush's presidency down.
One final note on Bush's speech preparation and rhetorical sensitivity.  He relied less on poll data than any president since Dwight Eisenhower.  His pollster, Robert Teeter, conducted only six national polls during the first two years of his presidency, and only one in 1991.  Reagan had 16 conducted during his first year in office.  Nixon had an on-going polling operation as did Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.  Perhaps this phenomenon contributed to Bush appearing to be out of touch with the American public in 1992.

BUSH'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS
When George Bush finished the oath of office and began his inaugural on January 20, 1989, he saluted George Washington, who had given the first inaugural 200 years earlier.  Bush then uttered a prayer of his own composition.  The tone was somber and the rest of the inaugural was traditional.
It called for an end to the bitter divisions in Congress.  And in its most original moment, claimed that "The final less of Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford to be sundered by a memory."  There were also echoes of the 1988 acceptance speech as when Bush stated his purpose: "It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world," and he revisited the "thousand points of lights."

The style of the speech was appropriate and often moving.  For example, early in the speech, Bush framed a unifying metaphor of a "new breeze;" at the end he said, "The new breeze blows, a page turns, the story unfolds. . . ."  Alliteration was wisely used: "A president is neither prince nor pope."  And some antitheses proved effective: "We need compromise; we have had dissension."  But for the most part, the inaugural is a simple speech that sets out goals in clear, plain English.

THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESSES
Like Ronald Reagan, Bush relished his State of the Union Addresses.  He seemed to feel more at home in the House chamber than in the White House.  His delivery was up to the standard of his 1988 acceptance in each of his State of the Union Addresses because he rehearsed them, because he knew how to use the teleprompters, and because he seemed genuinely buoyed by the cheering from the Congress and the galleries.

Only three weeks after his Inaugural, Bush appeared before a joint session of Congress to present his budget plan in a major address that was carried on national television.  The speech, very like a state of the union address, purported to set out "a realistic plan for tackling" the deficit.  Other proposals in the speech were drawn from the Republican credo including a call for a presidential line item veto, a balanced budget amendment, and reliance on the free enterprise system.

After an appeal to "family and faith," Bush turned to his specific agenda.  He proposed increasing funds for scientific and technological research, creating enterprise zones and a council on competitiveness headed by the Vice President, and cutting the minimum tax on capital gains.  Next, Bush took up education by proposing "merit schools" for students and rewards for excellent teachers.  The President then called for a "war against drugs" led by a new drug czar.  Later in the year, Bush would conduct a campaign of persuasion on the issue.

Once his foreign policy was set out, there could be little doubt that this was a state of the union address in the classic sense.  The President defended the Strategic Defense Initiative, then called for a ban on chemical weapons, an end to nuclear proliferation, self determination in Central America, and a strengthening of our European defensive ties.
In the conclusion of this lengthy address, Bush appealed to young Americans to "hold fast to your dreams" and quoted Churchill's famous lines "We shall not fail or falter. . . Give us the tools and we will finish the job."

The State of the Union Address of January 31, 1990 is important because it begins the process by which Bush became enmeshed in a plan to raise taxes thereby breaking his strongly worded acceptance speech pledge, "No new taxes."  Bush signaled that he was in a mood to compromise at the beginning of the speech when reminded his audience that he had served in the House and had been President of the Senate.

Bush then reviewed the changes in the world and enhanced his credibility by associating with them:  "Panama is free. . . . a free Poland. . . .  [the Berlin] wall is history. . . ."  After a transition to the domestic scene, Bush set out his agenda, which different little from that of the 1989 speech.  The first hint at compromise came in the lines, ". . . let me say again to all the members of Congress, the American people did not send us here to bicker. . . .  In the spirit of cooperation, I offer my hand to all of you."  Senator George Mitchell, the majority leader, would take that hand with dire consequences for the President.  In April on national television, first Bush then Mitchell endorsed a budget plan that included new taxes.  Bush was deserted by 126 members of his own party in the House when the measure came to a vote.  The debacle severely damaged his chances of re-election.

FOREIGN POLICY SPEECHES
On September 26, 1989, Bush returned to the United Nations where he had served as U.S. Representative in 1971 and 72.  Early in the speech, Bush praised U.N. peace keeping forces, and singled out Lt. Col. William Higgins, who had been hanged by terrorists in the middle east.  Bush went on to declare Marxism dead, identified democracy with individualism and capitalism, but resisted criticism of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.  He surveyed the set backs for totalitarianism around the world.  In an awkward antithesis, he said, "Advocates of the totalitarian idea saw its triumph written in the laws of history.  They failed to see the love of freedom that was written in the human heart."

Bush then called for the elimination of chemical weapons worldwide by proposing a three part treaty which already had the tacit agreement of the Soviet Union. He praised the new "openness" or glasnost in the Soviet Union as a prelude to his call for replacing "conflict with consensus."  Bush declared, "The new world of freedom is not a world where a few nations live in comfort while others live in want."

On December 20, 1989, the President announced a military incursion into Panama to capture its "dictator" Manuel Noriega.  The President justified the action in part on the grounds that Noriega was an "indicted drug trafficker" and a "thug."  Coming in his first year as President, the action indicated that Bush was not afraid to use force to achieve his ends.  It also revealed that Bush could rationalize his actions in a way that made them acceptable to the public.  Despite the fact that Noriega had been an agent for the CIA and many innocent civilians were killed during the invasion, the public approved of Bush's action.

Panama was prelude to Bush's moves against the aggression of Iraq.  On September 12, 1990, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress to assess the problem.  On August 2nd, Iraq had invaded Kuwait threatening oil supplies from the region.  In response Bush had organized a grand alliance of more than twenty nations that protected the Saudi frontier.  In what would become two common places for speeches on the war, Bush read a letter from a soldier and then acknowledged the team work of Generals Powell and Schwartzkopt.  Then the president presented his conditions to Iraq: "Kuwait's legitimate government must be restored.  The security and stability of the Persian Gulf must be assured."

Through a series of speeches, the rational for this Gulf War evolved.  By January 16, 1991, when he asked for Congressional support, Bush declared that what Hussein had done "shall not stand."  Finally, Bush rationalized American action by comparing Saddam Hussein to "Hitler" and Hussein's tanks to a "blitzkrieg."  In this equation, "one small country" became Poland in 1939.  Finally, by putting together a coalition of allies that included Arab as well as European nations, Bush demonstrated that world opinion was on America's side and that a "new world order" had been established.

When in March of 1991 the President appeared before a joint session of Congress to declare that the "war is over," he was greeted by effusive applause and chants from the Congress of "Bush, Bush, Bush."  House Speaker Tom Foley departed from tradition by extending to the commander in chief his "warmest congratulations on a brilliant victory."  Bush was humble in victory praising his team of advisors and "all who served in the field."  He then extended the themes he had initiated in earlier speeches into vindication for his policy: "We went half way around the world to do what is moral and just and right. . . .  We lifted the yoke of aggression. . ."  At the end of the speech, he was one of the most popular presidents in American history.

THE 1992 CAMPAIGN
In Looking Forward, Bush tells a prophetic story about a conversation with Jim Rhodes, Governor of Ohio.  After Bush had listed everything he'd do if he became president, Rhodes pulled out his wallet and slapped it on the table.  "That's it right there. . . .   Who can put money in people's pockets. . . .  That's what it's all about, George -- jobs, jobs, jobs."  The anecdote haunted Bush throughout 1992.  From his State of the Union Address on, Bush prayed for an economic recovery but it never came.  Thus, in the summer of 1992, he found himself where he had been four years earlier, behind his Democratic opponent.  Again, Bush needed to give the speech of a lifetime.
The acceptance speech at the Republican Convention in Houston in August failed for a number of reasons.  First, the public was concerned about the economy and foreign policy took a back seat in a world at peace.  Second, Bush had failed to deliver on his promises and had clearly broken the one concerning "no new taxes."  He failed to explain away that change of heart in believable terms.  Third, Bush failed to contextualize America's economic difficulties in terms of the world picture.  The fact of the matter was that the United States was doing well in a world wide depression.  Fourth, Bush's speech was framed by those who spoke earlier including a rabidly right wing Pat Buchanan who drowned out Reagan's marvelous swan song with a mean spirited attack on Hilary Clinton.  A religiously intolerant Pat Robertson, and a remarkably divisive Marylin Quayle identified the Republican Party with a prudish social agenda.  During these speeches, orchestrated chants from the floor rose up to a neo-classic imperial stage worthy of a fascist rally.

Despite this environment, Bush's speech did have its strong points.  It was delivered well and with an uncharacteristic amount of emotion.  On foreign policy, he scored heavily with the delegates, the guests and the national audience.  The new world order was defined in a way the average American could understand.  But the second half of the speech once again fell into partisan proposals that failed to come together in a unified way.  One could begin to count the number of pens that written paragraphs for the speech.

Much worse for Bush were the three presidential debates that followed in the fall.  Bush is not a natural debater: he speaks too elliptically for the public; he disdains the anecdotes that served Reagan so well; attacking is not part of his personality.  With the economy moribund, Bush would have to defend a failed domestic policy.  Ross Perot re-entered the campaign claiming he had been driven out earlier by dirty tricks on the part of the Bush campaign.  In all three debates, Perot would aim most his verbal bullets at Bush, much to the delight of the smooth talking Clinton.  Bush's diffident performance was particularly evident in the second debate where he kept looking at his watch.  In that debate, Bush decision to attack Clinton's character was undercut by moderator Carol Simpson's representation of the audience's frustration with negative campaigns.  He undermined his credibility on economic issues when he did not pay attention to a question from a Black woman, and said, "He didn't get" what she meant.  He undercut his defense of his administration by naively volunteering to answer questions first, which allowed Perot and Clinton to jump on his responses.  Bush had abandoned the Ailes' strategy and it cost him dearly.

For all these reasons, I conclude that Bush's presidency was neither a foreign policy nor a domestic failure.  It was in fact a rhetorical failure.  It highlights again the importance of communication skills in the modern world.  Oratory organizes policy, provides it with evidence, makes in understandable to the public, and expresses it in memorable ways.  Could Teddy Roosevelt have explained his foreign policy any better than speaking softly and carrying a big stick?  Would Franklin Roosevelt have galvanized national support without a New Deal for the American people?  Could Churchill and England have survived without blood, toil, sweat and tears?  And where would John Kennedy have been without a New Frontier?

Oratory changes history.  Had Webster not responded so eloquently to Hayne, the Union might have been shattered in 1830.  Had William Jennings Bryan not begged that "You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold" he never would have become the Democratic nominee for President.  Had Clarence Darrow not won the hearts of a jury, Leopold and Loeb would have been executed.   Finally, the analysis of oratory reveals something about a peoplel.  While a society's best music, sculpture and painting may represent the best aspirations of a society, its oratory reveals the values of the everyday man and woman.

The First Amendment provides the opportunity to speak and express our feelings.  And George Bush provides a precious lesson:  that unless we are properly trained, we cannot take full advantage of that gift.  I have spent most of my adult life training young men and women in the art of public persuasion.  I believe it is as essential to a public career in government service as it is to success in the private sector.  If you have not afforded yourself of the opportunity to study this art form, I hope you will soon.  I would not want some professor some where some day lecturing about you as a rhetorical failure.

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