Hail the old days?

My daughter and I watched this over the last few days and we loved it. How genteel Buckley was - and how intelligent and well-spoken they both were.

They must have electrified audiences.

I was green with envy watching it. Why don't we have people like that now? I'd say the closest we have is Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly. They're pretty awesome to watch in debate.

Public speaking was once the most popular form of entertainment, in the days before motion pictures, radio and television. Standards have been slipping since those days, although the tradition persisted in certain circles, notably the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, whose most famous member was Martin Luther King, Jr. Both Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young were members and it shows in their powers of public speaking. Many people don't like Jesse Jackson, and his remarks about Jews really torpedoed his political career, but he remained a very effective public speaker. I heard Andrew Young speak publicly, and he was not only a great natural orator, but had the power to convince in a subtle insinuating manner, and i don't mean insinuating in any negative connotation.

The press these days, though, don't want long speeches, they want "sound bites," what i think of as verbal bumper stickers. They wouldn't stick around to hear Lincoln read his Gettysburg address, which is a model of concision and brevity. (Edward Everett, the most popular public speaker of the day, spoke for two hours. The next day he sent a note to Lincoln: "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.") Two minutes would be way too long for the evening news.

We just live in a different world.

Perhaps it's because we don't value public speech as we once did. In 1630, aboard Arabella, sailing for Massachusetts Bay, John Winthrop delivered a sermon to the passengers and crew in which he spoke of "A shining city upon a hill." More than 300 years later, John Kennedy used the phrase again (and gave credit to Winthrop). Ronald Reagan used it, and used it twice. Perhaps because they just didn't have the educational background to do better themselves--although Kennedy's "Ask not . . ." from his inaugural address rises to that level. However, he was probably paraphrasing Oliver Wendell Holmes, which does suggest he had learned something along the way.

One might also suggest that we don't value witty repartée as we once did. Before telephones were common, people would step into a post office and send off a telegram, or engage a messenger there to deliver a note. George Bernard Shaw reported that he once sent this message to Winston Churchill: "I enclose two tickets for the first night of my new play, one for yourself and one for your friend, if you have one." Churchill immediately shot back: "I am sorry I cannot attend for the first night, but I should be glad to come on the second night, if there is one." Churchill was easily the most powerful and effective public speakers who lived in my lifetime. At the end of the Battle of Britain, even though it was not then known that that monumental air campaign was over, and won by the RAF, Churchill told the House: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Hastings "Pug" Ismay, then Chief of the Imperial General Staff said, in 1954 (when Churchill was till alive to contradict him, but didn't) that Churchill read out his notes for the speech to him, and that he had said "Never in the history of mankind . . ." Ismay asked him what about Jesus and his disciples. He says that Churchill then said: "Good old Pug," and rewrote the text.

With people like Churchill you know the wit and eloquence was native. They stood up in the House to answer their critics, or to criticize the government, and could not rely on a prepared text, except in examples like his speech to the House in August, 1940. In his "wilderness years," when he was out of government, and he stood up during question period, the word would go around the House, and people would abandon their dinners to run in and listen to Churchill rake the government over the coals.

I suspect that his native eloquence arose from the fact that he was half-American.

We do indeed live in a different world.

I memorized the Gettysburg address a long time ago. I'm still waiting for an opportunity to insert it into a conversation. Maybe one day.

Do you think the fact that we consume news in bumper stickers means we're more prone to being deluded? Or does our greater access to information mean we're better informed than people used to be?

I know only one person who knows so much history with such interesting little tidbits thrown in. I admit your post requires me to focus, but it is worth it. Except of course when you get snarky.

Naw . . . one contemporary commentator on the press in the early days of the republic referred to a constant shriek of indignation. Plus ça change . . .

Perhaps, those that might have issues with Jews in the U.S. don't understand that their influence is no different than any other successful group. Meaning, that Gentiles don't have a birthhright to influence in this country, even though by definition this is a Gentile nation, Jews being such a minority by numbers. One gets the influence one earns, regardless of one's demographic.

It's just that many do not care for the niche of success that some demographics have preferred. So, it's fine if some demographics have become officers in the military, as a niche for success, or other demographics have achieved an upper class through a family business, but Jews just don't seem to have an influence that correlates to their small numbers. How can that be???

But, it is interesting how Jesse Jackson's "torpedoed political career" is alluded to using the word "torpedoed," making one wonder whether some enemy did the old U-boat sneak attack? A veritable Jack Webb (Dragnet - Just the facts, Ma'am")?

Oy vey. Infidels of all denominations are free to worship as they see fit in the US.

But you're drawing me to look into a question that's lingered for a while. American Jews have a reputation for being staunch supporters of the US Constitution. There was an American Jew who found himself under attack and appealed to Christians: 'If you let this happen to me, what will protect you when it's your turn?'

Anybody know who I'm talking about? I'm sure I didn't make it up. I just can't remember the details.