So, Bush's cadences are Texan? I thought it was preacher style. The accent is one thing but the rhythm to it all, the stresses, I had connected these with church pulpit presentation and wondered if he'd picked that up to please religious conservatives. Same with his mother, Barbara. She sounds very church pulpit as well in delivery, the stops and starts, the type of condescendingjokes she tells. But you're saying that with Bush it is all just a Texas style of delivery?
In other words. Do all Texas politicians talk like preachers??
"In other words. Do all Texas politicians talk like preachers??"
I don't know about all. But Texas political oratory certainly has echoes of the tent revival. I guess I automatically discount anything I hear with that kind of presentation, with good reason I think. I remember the opening words of LBJ's "I will not seek..." speech, which for some reason I was actually listening to, and seemed like the prelude to more empty pieties, when BANG, he actually said he was, in effect, resigning. My reaction, and that of of almost everybody else who had grown used to his empty oratory, was "I must have mis-heard what he said." He had set me up with the opening bromide so that I was completely unprepared for something real. You can hear it
here
The tent revival stride. Can think of a number of popular tent revivalists hailing from TX and OK. Thanks for the link. His voice sounded different from what was in memory. Memory had subdued the accent.
I believe that Bush is living proof of Eric Ambler's observation that "Bullshit baffles brains." It is a constant source of amazement how otherwise rational, reasoning people can, day in and day out, believe Bush's lies. Mencken once said something about never underestimating the gullibility of the average American.
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