The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

The "F" in John F. Kerry stands for Failure in Rhetoric.

The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom
By STANLEY FISH
Published: September 24, 2004
CHICAGO

In an unofficial but very formal poll taken in my freshman writing
class the other day, George Bush beat John Kerry by a vote of 13 to 2
(14 to 2, if you count me). My students were not voting on the
candidates' ideas. They were voting on the skill (or lack of skill)
displayed in the presentation of those ideas.

The basis for their judgments was a side-by-side display in this
newspaper on Sept. 8 of excerpts from speeches each man gave the
previous day. Put aside whatever preferences you might have for
either candidate's positions, I instructed; just tell me who does a
better job of articulating his positions, and why.

The analysis was devastating. President Bush, the students pointed
out, begins with a perfect topic sentence - "Our strategy is
succeeding" - that nicely sets up a first paragraph describing how
conditions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
four years ago aided terrorists. This is followed by a paragraph
explaining how the administration's policies have produced a
turnaround in each country "because we acted." The paragraph's
conclusion is concise, brisk and earned: "We have led, many have
joined, and America and the world are safer."

It doesn't hurt that the names of the countries he lists all have the
letter "a," as do the words "America" and "safer." He and his
speechwriters deserve credit for using the accident of euphony to
give the argument cohesiveness and force. There is of course no
logical relationship between the repetition of a sound and the
soundness of an argument, but if it is skillfully employed repetition
can enhance a logical point or even give the illusion of one when
none is present.

The students also found repetition in the Kerry speech, about the
outsourcing of jobs, but, as many pointed out, when Mr. Kerry repeats
the phrase "your tax dollars" it is because he has become lost in his
own sentence and has to begin again.

When he finally extracts himself from that sentence, he makes two big
mistakes in the next one: "That's bad enough, but you know there's
something worse, don't you?" No, Senator Kerry, we don't know -
because you haven't told us. He is asking people to respond to a
point he hasn't yet made and, even worse, by saying "don't you?" he
is implying they should know what this point is before he makes it.
As a result, the audience is made to feel stupid.

And if that wasn't "bad enough," consider his next two sentences. Up
until now Mr. Kerry's point (insofar as you could discern one) had
been that current tax policies reward companies for moving their
operations overseas. But he goes on to add, "it gets worse than that
in terms of choices." The audience barely has time to wonder what and
whose choices he's talking about before it is entirely disoriented by
the declaration that "today the tax code actually does something
that's right." Excuse us, but how can getting something "right" be
"worse"? It turns out that there is an answer to that question later
in the speech - Mr. Kerry says that while the tax code now rewards
companies that export American products, Mr. Bush wants to eliminate
that good incentive - but it comes far too late for an audience
discombobulated by the sudden and unannounced change in the
argument's direction.

Senator Kerry, my students observed with a mix of solemnity and glee,
has violated two cardinal rules of exposition: don't presume your
audience has information you haven't provided, and always pay
attention to the expectations of your listeners. They also felt that
when he concludes by declaring that "when I'm president of the United
States, it'll take me about a nanosecond to ask the Congress to close
that stupid loophole," he undercuts the dignity both of his message
and of the office he aspires to by calling the loophole "stupid"
(instead of "unconscionable" or "unprincipled" or even "criminal").
"Stupid," one student said, is not a "presidential kind of word."

So what? What does it matter if Mr. Kerry's words stumble and halt,
while Mr. Bush's flow easily from sentence to sentence and paragraph
to paragraph? Well, listen to the composite judgments my students
made on the Democratic challenger: "confused," "difficult to
understand," "can't seem to make his point clearly," "I'm not sure
what he's saying," and my favorite, "he's kind of 'skippy,' all over
the place."

Now of course it could be the case that every student who voted
against Mr. Kerry's speech in my little poll will vote for him in the
general election. After all, what we're talking about here is merely
a matter of style, not substance, right? And - this is a common
refrain among Kerry supporters - doesn't Mr. Bush's directness and
simplicity of presentation reflect a simplicity of mind and an
incapacity for nuance, while Mr. Kerry's ideas are just too
complicated for the rhythms of publicly accessible prose?

Sorry, but that's dead wrong. If you can't explain an idea or a
policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours; and if it's
not yours, no one you speak to will be persuaded of it, or even know
what it is, or (and this is the real point) know what you are. Words
are not just the cosmetic clothing of some underlying integrity; they
are the operational vehicles of that integrity, the visible
manifestation of the character to which others respond. And if the
words you use fall apart, ring hollow, trail off and sound as if they
came from nowhere or anywhere (these are the same thing), the
suspicion will grow that what they lack is what you lack, and no one
will follow you.

Nervous Democrats who see their candidate slipping in the polls
console themselves by saying, "Just wait, the debates are coming." As
someone who will vote for John Kerry even though I voted against him
in my class, that's just what I'm worried about.

Stanley Fish is dean emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24fish.html>
--
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>