I read it and it was worse than what I’d expected. Definitely cringe-worthy but not on the same plane as Trump, MTG, etc. Difference between weird and hateful/lying/grandstanding.
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Obama had off-the-cuff gaffes and cringeworthy comments that didn’t come across the way he intended. And he certainly did better reading from a teleprompter than off-the-cuff … in contrast to Bill Clinton.
But all-in-all he was a pretty good public speaker. One of the better ones in my lifetime. It’s a big part of why he beat Hillary Clinton in the primary (which was the real election in 2008).
I say this as someone who is not a fan and voted against him twice. I can acknowledge his strengths though, and public speaking was certainly one of them.
I think I fully get it, since all of the major news anchors are currently in the spotlight via the lawsuit and Murdoch’s statements.
Imagine how weird it would be to come on air:
Tucker Carlson
“Big news tonight: I am a key figure in a major lawsuit where my boss says I knowingly and repeatedly lied on broadcast television. Allegedly, I have spread falsehoods, insinuating that Donald Trump won the 2020 election even though I fully knew that was bullshit. We have obtained records showing that I didn’t believe a word I told you rubes. Anyway, our first guest is Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
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I’m just going post this link of Letterman analyzing Obama speaking.
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You want more examples - here is an “uh” count from one of his Presidential debates with Mitt Romney.
I believe at this point this might lock in there viewers even more. Compare Tucker Carlson to televangelists (both spew bullshit with flecks of truth, to fleece their rubes). The “I did bad, it was the devil that tempted me, please forgive me” seems to work pretty well.
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I have difficulty in sympathizing with people who believe anchors who actually trash their own “contributors”, saying they’re crazy or everything they’re saying is false, but publicly support and amplify that messaging. It’s just infuriating.
I’m happy to make japes at Biden or other liberals. Biden is a weird old man. I think his intentions are good and he’s been pretty effective, but he is weird. I’m mad that weird is sometimes made out to be worse than “actively and intentionally lying to you.”
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<3 I’d rather someone say “uh” in order to think, than give a thoughtless response.
Admittedly I am probably on the wrong side of this, since I personally fail at work interviews by overthinking every question.
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No, you are on the right side of this. Much better to speak deliberately than to ramble off some nonsense to fill the dead space where you are formulating a response.
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Okay, maybe sometimes, but not for a TV debate.
Debating skills aside, I think everyone agrees that Obama didn’t have a Bush (or Biden) number of gaffes.
While we’re talking Biden saying weird things, npr tried to analyze the phrase “Lots of luck in your senior year” in his SOTU. TLDR He’s been using the phrase for decades, and nobody knows wtf it means.
I recall going to an event where three speakers had their presentations “graded” by Toastmasters. After the presentations they got up and said what was good and bad about each one.
The presenter who was, by FAR, the most engaging and memorable got the lowest grade. Because he said “uh” a lot.
The person who scored the best said “uh” one time but there were about 25 other times where she wanted to say it and had this super-distracting deer-in-headlights reaction when she needed to pause and collect her thoughts. And the one time it slipped out she stopped and called herself out on it in the middle of her talk. At that point the only thing I was paying attention to was whether or not she said “uh”… her focus on not doing it completely detracted from whatever she was actually trying to communicate.
TL;DR: I think WAY too much emphasis is placed on saying “uh”. Sure, best to limit the number of times you say it, but it’s like about 4,987 on the list of top 5,000 things that differentiate a good speech from a bad one.
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I actually couldn’t recall an Obama gaffe.
I did some Googling and recall most of them, not all, but none actually bothered me? They’re all like, calling one reporter “sweetie”. The worst was being caught on a hot mic saying he’d have a lot more flexibility after the election.
Pit him against W Bush, Trump, or even Biden, there’s almost nothing to pin him for except talking slowly.
Not a verbal gaffe, but you can’t ignore the tan suit…
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Oh he had them. On the 2008 primary campaign trail he said he’d been to 57 states so far… only one left to visit because his staff wouldn’t allow him to take the time to travel to Alaska or Hawaii.
“You didn’t build that” wasn’t exactly a gaffe, but something that certainly didn’t go over well and could have been stated more artfully and caused a lot less furor. Even simply “you didn’t build that in a vacuum” (which was his actual point) I think wouldn’t have infuriated people.
That said, this
is certainly true.
Anyone who speaks in public as much as a U.S. president (or serious candidate) is going to have the occasional misstep. For 9 years of being at the forefront of the public spotlight (January 2008 - January 2017) he had astonishingly few 
moments.
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FTR: I debated whether to mention “if you like your plan you can keep your plan” but decided that’s in a different category… not a gaffe or poor phrasing, but more like an empty campaign promise that he most likely knew was bunk when he said it.
The campaign in question being the one to get Obamacare passed.
I forgot about the 57 states. Very fair, a clear slip-up, although it was blown up into a “secret Muslim” thing.
Oh, or the terrorist fist jab, or the unforgiveable Dijon mustard incident.
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I didn’t remember that. Occam’s Razor would suggest that it was simply the fatigue of an extremely (and very unusually) long and grueling primary campaign.
Definitely don’t remember that.
I think there was also the fact that he visited several territories–including DC–during that campaign that went into that count of 57.
Lol, you don’t remember the “spicy mustard” incident? Fox put it on blast, Obama liked fancy mustard.
The “57 states” thing was blown up on Facebook and similar sites, something about a loose religious alliance of 57 Muslim-majority countries.
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