“There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory.” –American author and humorist Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Great oratory is a skill that many have perfected over the course of history. Both for good, and evil.
“Barack Obama will not stop committing serial dishonesty with the American people until the media expose his false figures and bogus exaggerations for what they are: fraudulent scare tactics. Last night Obama told a litany of lies. He said the total cost of his health reform would be $900 billion over ten years, but even the government-run Congressional Budget Office found it would cost $1.6 trillion. He claimed his reform would not cover illegal immigrants or abortions, but nothing in any of the Democrat bills requires citizen verification and several organizations including the National Right to Life Committee have shown exactly how federal funds would be used to pay for abortion-on-demand. He knows these are lies and he tells them because he is confident the left wing ‘news’ media will let him get away with it. Worst still, Obama used these lies to play on Americans greatest fears and vulnerabilities. He warned that more people would die unless we passed his sweeping plan and threatened that our country’s economic pulse would weaken with American businesses closing. And still, the media let him get away with it. This must stop. The media must expose Obama’s calculated scare tactics and lying on ‘reform.’ Failing to do so gives him a green light to lie and cry wolf about whatever he wants, whenever he wants. And it will aid in the most radical government takeover ever attempted in America.” –Media Research Center President Brent Bozell
“So why can’t the silver-tongued post-partisan healer seal the deal on this health care business? Surely it should be the work of moments for the greatest orator in American history to whip up a little medicinal Gettysburg, a touch of Henry V-in-the-Agincourt-casualty-tent, and put this thing away. Yet there he was the other night with the usual leaden medley of tinny grandiosity (all the this-is-the-moment, now-is-the-hour stuff), slippery reassurances (don’t worry, you won’t be ‘required’ to change your present health arrangements), imputations of bad faith to anyone who takes a different view (they’re playing ‘games’), and the copper-bottomed guarantee that you can have it all for no money down, no interest, no monthly payments, no nuthin’ (‘I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit’). This would barely have passed muster four months back. After a summer of seething town halls and sliding approval numbers, it was a joke. Or, rather, it would be a joke if the president’s intention was to persuade an increasingly skeptical, if not downright hostile, electorate. On the other hand, if the intention is to ram it down America’s throat whatever the citizenry thinks, then the joke’s on us.” –columnist Mark Steyn
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