The Communication skills of the last 3 GOP presidents

[angus]

Several people have commented on Obama's weakness regarding unscripted moments, but I'm just not getting this.  I don't find his unscripted moments at all sub-par.  On the one hand, I recognize that it's important to be able to speak, "HELLOOOOO CLEVELAND.  WHO'S HIGH RIGHT NOW?  LEMME HEAR YA YELL!  IN AAAAAA."  Been there.  Done that.  ("Well, okay, we were in Boston, not Cleveland.  And most of our shows were weddings, bar-mitzvahs, birthdays, and one foreign student welcoming orientation event, but, yeah, when I was in college and grad school I was a singer, songwriter, and general frontman in various incarnations of local bands, and as the leadman, I was generally instructed not to use vulgar language or references to illegal activities by the people who hired us.  Still, I understand that venue.  That vibe.  That need to be able to rock the world of a bunch of dazed and confuzed teeners and tweeners intent on damaging their eardrums and getting stoned and laid before the night was done.  And not necessarily in that order.)   But we're not electing the next Elvis.  Or the next pope.  Or the next drinking buddy.  Are we?  We're electing the next Herbert Hoover.  (That guy got a bad wrap, y'all know that, don't you?  Roosevelt wouldn't have been re-elected in '32 if he'd been first elected in '28.  I hope people basically understand that.)  Anyway, we're electing a president to preside in times of crises.  And I hope we have come a long way since 1928.  I suspect we have.  The literacy rate is much higer, and so is the general living standard, so there's no reason to to think that we can't appreciate a subdued, thoughtful style.  I appreciate it.  Then again, I'm not quite young enough to have been born with a video game control device in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, so I'm not sure if I can speak for Generation Wired.  Still, whomever I speak for--namely myself--I find Obama's unscripted moments enlightening, lucid, and informative.  Obama, like Hoover, isn't all that inspirational off-the-cuff, but then, the times aren't that inspirational either, are they?  Obama does, however, seem to have a decent grasp of the history of the office, and of the facts that confront him.  He's not an entertainer the way Bush was, or the way Clinton was.  But he's inspirational nevertheless.  Of course he's no Jay Leno, but then I wouldn't want to hire Jay Leno as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed services, or the next appointer of the federal judiciary.  So I don't hold it against him that he doesn't constantly entertain and enthrall me.