Some Good Advice

Man, there's a lot of good stuff online today. Everytime I say, "okay, that's enough posts", something else comes up. Here's something from Lee at Right Thinking from the Left Coast. Excerpted in full below.

BTW, if his own coaches can't get him to do better than he's been doing after four years, why haven't they been fired?

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Performance Enhancement

I’m writing this post on the microscopic chance that someone on the Bush campaign happens to read it. I’ve watched the debate on my TiVo, and I’ve seen the way the comedians and punditry have picked it apart. I have to say, watching Bush in that thing was painful.

Look, I know Bush isn’t a great public speaker. I don’t fault him for that, lots of people aren’t good at speaking in public. This doesn’t make him an idiot or retarded or what have you. And I know that his verbal gaffes in the beginning of his presidency have caused him to be gun shy when it comes to speaking off the cuff. I’ve noticed over the years that he tends to think before he speaks, and if he has to take a second or two to collect his thoughts then that’s fine.

But for God’s sake, someone tell him to move his damn body while he’s doing it.

I know that when I’m in a situation where I am speaking in front of people I will sometimes need to stall for a moment to prepare a response. In that instance I do something to distract from what I’m doing. What can you do? You smirk, or shake your head, or say something like, “Let me put it this way.” Put your hand up to your mouth and cough. This gives you the two or three seconds you need to get on your feet. Bush looks into the camera to address the people, as he should when he is ready to speak, and then begins to collect his thoughts. So there you have the President of the United States, in a presidential debate, look into the camera and freeze solid, like a deer in the headlights. It just looks ridiculous, and it makes someone like me, who generally likes Bush as a president and who plans to vote for him, just cringe in embarrassment for him.

Bush has weaknesses as a communicator, some of them significant. He needs to work around them. If anyone connected with the campaign reads this, I beg you… tell the president to keep moving while he’s collecting his thoughts. He looks like a moron when he just stands there. Trust me, there isn’t a Bushism in the world that’s worse than the continual replays of Bush freezing on camera.