The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
Mark Twain
Lou Cannon at Real Clear Politics has a fascinating piece comparing FDR and Reagan as orators:
Go here to read the fascinating rest. It is intriguing that the two greatest orators who were Presidents during the last century came from opposite political poles. Both Roosevelt and Reagan had the talent of making large issues understandable to the average voter and appealing to their hearts as well as their interests. In a time of petty politicians who shrink the offices they occupy, it is instructive to look back at larger than life figures like Roosevelt and Reagan. They personified leadership and convinced substantial majorities of the American people to follow them. Our seeming inability to produce such leaders today is at the heart of much of our national discontent. Is the fault in us or in our times? I think rather in the times. Gloria Swanson, as mad doomed Nora Desmond, forgotten silent star, utters this classic line in Sunset Boulevard: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small. We live in petty times so we produce petty men and women to lead us. Usually such times end when some great disaster overwhelms the small figures at the helm and I rather suspect that is what will shock us out of this “slough of despond” in which we currently find ourselves.
[…] Roosevelt, Reagan and Us – Donald R. McClarey, T.A.C. […]