www.MarkTAW.com/culture_and_media/ObservationsonBushsSpeech.html (printable version)

1. His inhaling was somewhat irregular, which I think showed he was a little nervous, or at the very least consciously trying to control his breath and mannerisms. Normally you wouldn't hear this, but this was an acoustically poor situation with the wind, ship noise, and audience and all. I think he'd inhale and hold his breath before he talked. Maybe this is public speaking 101, I don't know, but I suspect that if you can control your breath, you can control the way others perceive you.
   But the fact that he didn't control ALL of his breaths is interesting, and it was the few small gasps of air, irregular and uncontrolled that I heard.
2. He'd look in a repetitive swaying pattern from side to side... slightly hypnotizing maybe, and then look directly at the camera to punctuate his sentences. His delivery was also somewhat repetitive. I noticed some of the sailors looked bored during the speech, and I think I heard someone clap out of turn after one of his sentences. To me this means that his emphasis is practiced and he uses the same emphasis - to different degrees - all the time in order to convey sincerity. That sailor who clapped was confused because he was listening for cues from the tone of his voice, and not the words, and the tone of his voice varied little from sentence to sentence. He's also got a really great poker face.
      In "The President's Speech," one of the stories in Oliver Sacks' book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat he talks of patients who had lost the ability to recognize language. They could hear sounds, but for some reason, their brain didn't process the words. One day he heard them laughing hysterically and went in to see what they were watching. It turned out to be a speech by Ronald Reagan.
      In this, then, lies their power of understanding -- understanding without words, what is authentic or inauthentic. This it was the grimaces, the histrionics, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for these wordless but immensely sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and un-deceivable by words.
      This is why they laughed at the President's speech.
3. That was a lot to memorize. I suspect he had a small earpiece and someone was feeding him lines. Notice how he paused between every phrase, there was plenty of time for someone to feed him every line. I looked but didn't see an earpiece. Maybe they used that technology that sends a laser like audio signal so only he could hear it, or maybe it was a tiny earpiece. I wonder whether they'll use something similar in the debates later this year. I guess we'll see how the debates match up to this speech.
4. I've seen Bush talk in the documentary Journeys with George, and in the Barbara Walters special, and he has a very different way of speaking. Sure it's the same guy delivering the lines, but when he speaks off the cuff, it's much less controlled.
      I somehow suspect that his podium mannerisms only work because you have nothing to compare it to - sitcoms and newscasters bookend the speech - hardly a model of realistic human speech patterns, and if you were there in the audience, then the there was nobody else on stage with him to compare his odd, forced speaking tones with. Besides, so what if a hundred sailors thought the president was silted? Millions of Americans probably didn't notice.
5. Bush always speaks in front of a captive, and receptive audience. Congress, the military, etc. Their reaction is somewhat predictable, and acts as a sort of canned-laughter for the people at home. Otherwise, I see no reason this speech had to happen on this ship, other than the usual patriotism.
6. The location and shots of him arriving on a jet plane and being told that he took control of the jet briefly becuase he was a pilot "during the vietnam era" were all designed to make it appear as if he was alone. A Texas cowboy shooting from the hip and choosing the time and location of this speech on a whim.
      On the other hand, at the end of the speech when he was shaking hands, were those secret service angents flanking him? Where did they come from? Perhaps he wasn't as alone as they had intended us to believe.
      Afterwards, they said he was going to spend the night on the ship. Something about this made me uneasy... For someone with such a facade, was he really not concerned about letting it down around the crew of this ship?
7. Added May 25, 2003 : The aircraft carrier was only 37 miles from it's port and if the camera was pointed in a different direction, you would've seen land!

Anyway, those were just a few of my observations. Do with them what you will. I'm neither praising nor condemning what I saw, simply commenting on it.

It's come to my attention that since the 2004 Presidential Debates, people are linking to this article because it refers to Bush wearing an earpeice. This article was actually written in May of 2003 about his speech aboard the USS Abraham Linlcoln. Full Text on washingtonpost.com

If you're interested in the 2004 Presidential Debates, visit this site:

http://isbushwired.com/

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page first created on Friday, May 02, 2003

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