Speaking of the moon: Gingrich v. Kennedy



Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has told us that, by the end of his second term (about 2 minutes into the above), there would be Americans living on the moon. With enough of them there, they'd even be able to become a state of the USA.

And why not?

After all, in 1961, President Kennedy had made the first of two famous speeches about American plans to send a man to the moon. The first was to Congress (below), followed up a year later by his "We choose to go to the moon" speech at Rice University (HERE).


So if Kennedy could get away with such an ambitious goal, why not Gingrich?

Er, at least 3 reasons:
1. Kennedy had already been president for more than a year when he went public with his proposal.

2. Before that, he'd already had time to consult with the relevant experts and no doubt had a pretty good idea that a man on the moon within a decade was entirely possible.

3. Kennedy never made any colonial claims on the moon. Nor, though he may have left a US flag there, did Neil Armstrong - or anyone else.

Obama's State of the Union speech: (2) Enhanced by PowerPoint?


When I first started watching the version of President Obama's State of the Union speech posted on YouTube by the White House, I wondered what the blue rectangle on the right hand side was for.

But all quickly became clear: it was for PowerPoint style slides and they, presumably, were what transformed it into an 'enhanced version'.

So we got to see a picture and the wordds MORE THAN 1 MILLION AMERICAN TROOPS SERVED IN IRAQ BETWEEN 2003-2011

Then a wanted poster for Osama bin Laden with a big red cross through it.

Then more pictures of US troops followed numbers of how many of them had fought in various wars.

And so on and on and on, through pictures, bar charts, graphs, diagrams lists of bullet points, on the US economy, education, etc., etc., etc.

Enhancement or distraction?
Watching this, I was left gasping, wondering who on earth in team Obama believes that his speeches are actually enhanced by such distractions, unless it was the same person who thought that background musak 'enhanced' the film of his speechwriters preparing the speech (see previous post).

Does it mean we can now expect President Obama to take a slide projector along with him during the forthcoming presidential campaign?

I think not - for the obvious reason that he's a good enough communicator to know that the words in his speeches and the way he delivers them are enough on their own to get his messages across.

What's more, I very much hope that this White House model of an 'enhanced presentation' doesn't give other lesser speakers (e.g. most British politicians) the idea that this is the way to improve their own speeches 'going forward'.

See for yourself
If you haven't seen it yet, it's well worth watching all the way through - and coming to your own conclusion as to whether the visual aids enhance or distract from what he said.

Obama's State of the Union speech: (1) Behind the scenes with the speechwriters


Few British political speechwriters though there may be, anyone who writes any kind of speech is likely to be interested not only in this film but also by the fact that it had nearly 400,000 views on YouTube within 24 hours of being posted there.

A cunning part of team Obama's communication strategy perhaps, but there's something very refreshing about a top politician openly admitting that he gets help with his speeches and being willing to give a public platform to those who help him.

So far, I've only watched it once and found the most annoying part was the awful background musak - but the producers of the film maybe know something that I don't about how distracting noises can enhance the impact of such propaganda...

The State of the Union address itself seemed to go down pretty well. But the video posted by the White House had another major distraction - on which more shortly in Part (2).