"The Eloquent President"

This morning I finished reading "The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words" by Ronald White, Jr. After painstakingly dissecting Lincoln's most powerful speeches and letters, White concludes with an obvservation that I wholeheartedly second: that words really do matter, and that the ability to speak eloquently and persuasively is a vital ingredient of great presidencies.

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It has become fashionable for some modern presidents, presidential candidates and their cheerleaders to downplay this fact, to pretend that self-deprecating humor can compensate for intellectual laziness and lack of speaking ability; certainly we can all agree that speaking ability alone--in the absence of other admirable abilities and character traits--should not be the ultimate measure by which we judge our presidents and presidential candidates. But neither should we dismiss it so readily. Ronald Reagan was no intellectual giant, and he could use self-deprecating humor to good effect, but he was also a gifted communicator who understood the value of words and could use them to good effect (see post below).