(no subject)

[gothwalk]

An interesting interview between Jeremy Paxman and Tony Blair. No idea who Paxman is, but he asks some good questions, as do members of the audience.

Another thing that just occurred to me... I watched a recording of Colin Powell's statement to the UN Security Council last Wednesday, and saw Jack Straw speaking just after him. I've seen people saying - seen peripherally, that is - that Powell's speech was "powerful" and "moving". Um, folks. The man read it from a sheet of paper in front of him, pausing every three words and looking up. It was like a poor performance in a small debating society. Jack Straw didn't say anything substantially different (in fact, it reminded me of the puppet scene from Chicago, but never mind that), but he said it a lot better.

Do people anywhere really think Powell's a good speaker?

Comments

[secretprayer.livejournal.com]

I was living in the States back when Powell was headlining news because he was contemplating running for President on the Conservative ticket -- he had huge approval ratings and even Democrats and Libertarians admired him, so coverage of him was really glowing and packed with (mostly accurate, I suspect) compliments. But even in the midst of those praise-sessions I can't remember ever reading/hearing that he was a great orator.

I get the impression he is usually praised for being decent, principled, intelligent, all those things, rather than rhetorically brilliant.

(His generally principled angle on things seemed to be shown yet again in the Iraq crisis in how he, at first, seemed reluctant to be quite as into Manichean Dualism as Bush. What he is doing now spouting Bush's party line absolutely bewilders me.)