You would think that George W. Bush would make enough verbal gaffes that a journalist wouldn’t have to try to trick his readers into thinking that Bush is more inarticulate than he is. But Slate, under the direction of Jacob Weisberg, must come up with a Bushism of the Day to feed their feature and the cash cow of calendars and other merchandise catering to Bush-loathers. Eugene has been insightfully covering these over the last year or so.
Accordingly, on days when Bush has made no real mistakes, Slate must squeeze quotations out of context or pretend that informal, off-the-cuff speech should look on the page like edited prose. Real conversation is a series of starts and stops, with doubling back to respond to the words and facial expressions of the hearers.
First, quotations out-of-context. Consider this example of a sensible statement that seems silly out of context:
“I’m here skiing the New Hampshire primary.” (Jan. 23, 2004)
Second, inarticulateness. Consider this example of inarticulateness:
“Well this a, of course, when we were up there, we were talking skiing a little bit, and we were were talking talking politics.” (Jan. 23, 2004)
Certainly, “we were were talking talking politics” is inarticulate, but it is the ordinary sort of speaking error that even those far more articulate than Bush would make.
I can prove my last assertion because these are not “Bushisms,” but rather “Slatisms.”
I searched for an online recording of Jacob Weisberg and found both of these on the second one I listened to–Jacob Weisberg interviewing a Kerry family member on NPR (Jan. 23, 2004). And this was an interview in which Weisberg should have had an opportunity to prepare his questions.
I should say that Weisberg is extremely fluent and articulate in his interviewing style, well beyond most speakers and well beyond George W. Bush. Yet this only brings home how unfair and what poor journalism Slate’s feature frequently is. If I had listened to more than two of Weisberg’s NPR commentaries or interviews, I would probably have been able to come up with many more examples–especially if I were to use the misleading standards that Slate uses in choosing examples.
Personally, I usually try for exteme naturalness in presentation, with a style designed to convey intellectual excitement about otherwise dry data, rather than designed to be read in a transcript. At scholarly meetings, I find the attempt at perfect prose (typical of philosophers sticking closely to their prepared remarks) usually boring and lacking in the spontaneity necessary to give the impression that you really believe what you are saying. That is why lawyers are usually trained not to use fully prepared remarks, but instead to use an outline. Indeed, the advice is that, if you write out the text of your remarks, you should outline that full text, and then tear up the full text.
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