Former Clinton speechwriter Eric Liu comments in today's WaPo:
"What do we mean when we call a president a "great communicator"? Maybe we mean he's a great storyteller. But whether or not he's a stirring orator or charming raconteur, we mean that he's a teller of great stories. In presidential politics, the man is a metaphor. The candidate who can tell a story about himself that's deeply in sync with a story about the country -- and who can make the stories equally compelling -- is most likely to win."
Exactly. As I sggested on Wednesday the press doesn't like Bush because he can't use language in the precise, nuanced way they value as writers. He, however, communicates on a more basic level. Liu contiues;
'Bush 2.0 -- the president -- no longer needs to sell himself directly all the time. He can paint a tableau of the nation's experience and let that image stand in for his own. The subtext of his convention speech was this: Here is a decent man who was not looking for war on Sept. 10, a man who on that day was still haunted by the sense that he should live up to something bigger, and who, by an unimaginable tragedy, was lit with a singular sense of intention and determination that removed all doubt about who he was or could be."
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