Memo to Bush: brevity and the Bible

[emad]

Tims
By Gerard Baker



AS PRESIDENT BUSH takes the oath of office today on the steps of the US Capitol Building, he might reflect on some of the lessons offered by the history of this grandest and most solemn of American pageants.

“Keep it brief” is probably the most obvious one. In 1841 William Henry Harrison famously thundered out a 90-minute inaugural address in freezing temperatures without hat or coat and duly succumbed to pneumonia.

His performance gives him a brace of oddly complementary records in American political history — the longest inaugural speech and, at 31 days, the shortest presidency.

If the sub-zero temperatures that did for President Harrison and that have gripped Washington this week continue today, Mr Bush might consider following Ronald Reagan at his second inauguration in 1985. Conscious that, at 73, he was the oldest president ever to be sworn in, he decided climate-controlled discretion was the better part of frostbitten valour and held the only indoors formal inauguration in the past 50 years.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1448078,00.html

[emad]

1. Man who put the words in leader's mouth

Times
From Roland Watson in Washington


IF PRESIDENT BUSH sounds a bit different after today’s inaugural address, it will be because he has been given a new voice.

Michael Gerson, Mr Bush’s chief speechwriter since the 2000 presidential campaign, is moving on and today’s performance will be his swansong.

Mr Gerson is an invisible hero of this presidency, toiling in the shadows and crafting elegant and powerful lines for which Mr Bush takes the credit. Although famous for his malapropisms when unscripted, some of his finest moments have been his set-piece speeches, especially in the days after the September 11 attacks.

Mr Gerson’s achievement was in succeeding to translate Mr Bush’s natural halting cadence into perfectly pitched text. A trademark of Mr Gerson, an evangelical Christian, was to weave biblical references into Mr Bush’s speeches. His skills earned him a reputation as one of the finest in his trade, alongside Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s wordsmith, and Theodore Sorenson, John Kennedy’s speechwriter.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1448211,00.html

[aden_nak]

2. THREE HOUR SPEECH! THREE HOUR SPEECH!

"In 1841 William Henry Harrison famously thundered out a 90-minute inaugural address in freezing temperatures without hat or coat and duly succumbed to pneumonia."