Stanley Fish: Bush's Style Trumps Kerry's Substance

Want to bet Fish will be making the rounds of the talk shows berating Kerry's speaking style?



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24fish.html

The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom
By STANLEY FISH

Published: September 24, 2004

In an unofficial but very formal poll taken in my freshman writing class the other day, George Bush beat John Kerry by a vote of 13 to 2 (14 to 2, if you count me). My students were not voting on the candidates' ideas. They were voting on the skill (or lack of skill) displayed in the presentation of those ideas.

...

So what? What does it matter if Mr. Kerry's words stumble and halt, while Mr. Bush's flow easily from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph? Well, listen to the composite judgments my students made on the Democratic challenger: "confused," "difficult to understand," "can't seem to make his point clearly," "I'm not sure what he's saying," and my favorite, "he's kind of 'skippy,' all over the place."

Now of course it could be the case that every student who voted against Mr. Kerry's speech in my little poll will vote for him in the general election. After all, what we're talking about here is merely a matter of style, not substance, right? And - this is a common refrain among Kerry supporters - doesn't Mr. Bush's directness and simplicity of presentation reflect a simplicity of mind and an incapacity for nuance, while Mr. Kerry's ideas are just too complicated for the rhythms of publicly accessible prose?

Sorry, but that's dead wrong. If you can't explain an idea or a policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours; and if it's not yours, no one you speak to will be persuaded of it, or even know what it is, or (and this is the real point) know what you are. Words are not just the cosmetic clothing of some underlying integrity; they are the operational vehicles of that integrity, the visible manifestation of the character to which others respond. And if the words you use fall apart, ring hollow, trail off and sound as if they came from nowhere or anywhere (these are the same thing), the suspicion will grow that what they lack is what you lack, and no one will follow you.

Nervous Democrats who see their candidate slipping in the polls console themselves by saying, "Just wait, the debates are coming.'' As someone who will vote for John Kerry even though I voted against him in my class, that's just what I'm worried about.


Stanley Fish is dean emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The guy can't put a coherent sentence together. Heck, I have only been speaking/writing in English for a few years and I do it hundreds of times better. What about his style? That of a moron who barely reads, one whose thought process is so simple even a 3rd grader could surpass it? The "folksy" charm of a naive silver-spoon fed whiny inconsiderate fake cowboy?

Puh-leeze... I'm so tired with all this "merda" ...

Vaffanculo Bush!

not being able to talk a speaking style? I would have to call his speaking style "stammering incoherent non-sentences, interspersed with unrelated topics"

says anything

and that they were confusing and were not persuasive, and not because the issues were complex. Bush's speeches are lies, which is a different matter. That Bush's speechwriters are good at making his lies appealing is yet another.

Kerry and his speechwriters should take note.

Smirky is the one whose words stumble and halt while Kerry's words flow from sentence to sentence.

Just more mindless drivel from the peanut gallery. Pay no attention.

A tirade against schooling designed to pass standardized tests rather than to analyze ideas and issues: I know this did not begin with NCLB, but it certainly made a bad situation worse. When education is about facts rather than thinking, is it any wonder that people cannot understand subtlety.

How's that in two sentences?

These kids have been dumbed-down by 4 years of Chimpspeak.

They just don't know how to think anymore. Too much marketing speech from Bush, too many slogans.

I always thought that Bush's speaking style was incredibly cumbersome. When he goes um uh and stuff. The problem is that people don't want someone who will actually tell them things. Especially if it takes paragraphs as opposed to sentences.

that "Bush" speaks the way he does because he has writers. But his point is that the campaign's message is clearer than Kerry's, and he may have a point, but he makes it in an annoying, almost joyful way. He seems to take great pleasure in rubbing Kerry's nose in it.

anyone who wants to call his mumbling rambling brainless speak as "style" has been sipping the K00l-AID.

because he used 5 words or less to make his statement. One person coined it, speech for the "Fast Food Generation." They went on to say that Kerry was a "Dinner Party Conversationalist."

All of it just screams out to me that this generation is very, very sad. I say, put down the cell phones and listen/read more.

Did the fact that they fouind Bush's speeches more accessible really make him more appealing as a candidate? Stanley Fish says he going to vote for Kerry, so how important IS style over substance?

sound bites seem to be the key to understanding his side. They said if Kerry does not change his tactics/speech patterns in the next six weeks, it could spell trouble. I walked away from the report as a helpful call out to the Democrats, but maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

Most people are to busy jumping in their SUVs and heading to Wal-Mart to worry about political/worldly issues. Out of all the important political items on the plate this election, most are only concentrating on two, Iraq and the economy (mostly Iraq), sad, so that should say something right there. Again, it is a shame Kerry might have to dumb down his speech for the masses.

The media cover Kerry's statements in a way they'd never dream of covering Bush's. When Bush hurriedly abandoned his 'turning the corner' statement after ridicule from Kerry, nary a word in the media about how he is off-message or struggling to find a campaign theme.

Yet take note--wherever Kerry is at in the polls, ahead, behind, tied, rising, falling, the media folks ask: why isn't he catching on? How can he connect with voters? When is his campaign going to get a strong clear message? All these loaded questions can plant in people's heads the idea that Kerry isn't connecting, isn't catching on, and isn't clear. It's the same tactic used in push polling.

Is Kerry perfect? Of course not, but it isn't so simple as one man's speaking style being great and the other's being poor--there are other factors.

to be discerning ... to find out the facts ... to be more than just swept along on a tide of "Bush is a Christian man being humbly led by God to protect our great nation blah blah blah."

As for me, if I want folksy, I'll buy "Hee-Haw Highlights" on DVD.

don't bother anyone with the discourse of democracy...its hard work.

folksy!

I can't say any more...

theories once) ... he's the father of the "reader-response" method of criticizing a work ... for his bio ...

http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/stanley_fish.html

No comment on Bush's "style" here (because I think his speechwriters STINK) ... just giving you the guy's bio.

"...Reader-response criticism, to use Fish's term for his theory or method of reading, argues that reading is a temporal phenomenon and that writers depend upon this in several significant ways. Texts are constructed with dilemmas, changes in direction, and false starts ... and the meaning of ... texts is in our experience of these phenomena, not simply some final, spatialized, or thematized resolution of them. The meaning of a literary work, in short, is the work a reader does while reading it."

So I guess he's saying that when listeners "work" Bush's speeches over in their minds, they have a better experience than they do when they "work" Kerry's.

Whatever, Stanley!

What the fuck? What in the FRIGGITY, FRIGGITY FUCK IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!?!

:wtf:

-MR

P.S. Unless... maybe, just maybe, this is part of the "raising *'s expectations, lowering Kerry's" plan? In which case, I'm all for it.

this guy is whoring for somebody.

I think he's really good at whatever it is that he does, but Stanley Fish has judged the wrong thing in his column. This is the basis for his class's evaluation, as taken from the article:

"The basis for their judgments was a side-by-side display in this newspaper {New York Times} on Sept. 8 of excerpts from speeches each man gave the previous day. Put aside whatever preferences you might have for either candidate's positions, I instructed; just tell me who does a better job of articulating his positions, and why."

What his class was evaluating was not who was doing a better job of articulating positions, the class was evaluating the New York Times, and the job it does of reporting on the two candidates.

A fairer evaluation would take unedited clips from live, stand-up question and answer sessions before impartial audiences. But footage of that is pretty rare for Bush. Line up Bush's answer to the "sovereignty" question at the Black Journalists' conference against anything by Kerry, and have the students evaluate the candidates' effectiveness based on that.

As it is, Fish's students weren't evaluating the candidates; they were evaluating the Times' coverage of the candidates. For Fish to pretend otherwise, and for the Times to run his piece is disingenuous at best, downright dishonest at worst.

Shame on you, Professor Fish.

He looks at writing.

You're right. It's much more a comment on the media -- the quotes that are chosen, etc. -- than on mumble-mouthed Dubya or articulate Kerry.

It was a typically "gratuitous" attempt at humor.

And color me VERY disappointed that a professor of literature, especially one as eminent as Stanley Fish, has so publicly confused a newspaper column with a man's actual words.

It's a well-worded and concise LTTE.

You may even get Fish to reply and say, embarassingly for his profession, "too bad he/she could not seem to get it down to two sentences or less -- must not really believe what they're saying."

As for reader-response method of lit crit, while there may be some validity to that in general, it sounds like blatant pandering to postmodernism at the specific level. "There is no meaning in the text except that which the reader creates for him or her self" is how most students will be conditioned to understand Mr. Fish's theory.

How is that any different from Anne Applebaum's argument that network news is irrelevant BECAUSE it attempts to establish truth and falsehood for an entire nation?

No, Fish's class, like most of our nation's centers for the elite, is full of decadent, inbred, postmodern upper-middle class so-called "liberals" who are not liberal at all. They vote democratic solely on social issues and for no other reason. They will grow up to be the Giuliani Republicans of tomorrow.

But your post inspired me to post at the NYT online. I'm known there as "cwcconvenor" and you can read a slightly edited version of my post here under the heading "Fish judges wrong thing."

Thanks for the encouragement.

and Bush is utterly incapable of articulating simple minded speech even when it is on a teleprompter for him.

I have some simple speech for Fish. You are a moron. Simple enough?

"We have a real problem in this country. OBGYNs can't practice their.... love on their patients" G.W Bush

never happen though...

i think that sums it up about Mr. Fish and Mr. Bush's so called style. :dunce:

the Modern Language Association.

reported that bush states things in 7 words or less - suitable for our fast food society, whereas Kerry gives a full course menu.

We have some dumb people in our society.

Bush* is an illiterate twit who cannot deliver a spontaneous thought without tripping over every syllable. Kerry is just the opposite. In spontaneous situations, he's thoughtful and articulate.

The problem is, Bush* delivers a standard stump speech that requires no thought on his part. It is effective because it is packed with tight phrases. It's well written and Bush* does deliver it while seeming engaging. That it is full of deception and nonsense doesn't matter. Short catchy slogans that simplify issues work.

Kerry, on the other hand, delivers speeches in a more traditional way. He builds from the foundation up. His speeches are thoughtful and the conclusions based on the premises he's established. And it is BORING as hell to most Americans. Plus, it doesn't deliver powerful sound bites to the media.

Kerry's camp I'm sure is aware of this. Fish's conclusion is probably no surprise to them.

Fish might be wrong about the debates. If Bush* is put in a position where he cannot use one of his "canned" responses, he'll flounder. Kerry won't have that problem. If/when Bush* does struggle, Kerry needs to nail him on it immediately--don't rely on the media to do so in the post-mortem.

Soundbites sound good but don't give us much else and sheeple like things that SOUND GOOD.

:eyes:

debates. Kerry made a brief remark on the dreaded Regis and Kelly show about the debates. Kerry said that they have agreed on three debates with the Bush camp, but unfortunately, at least the first one, will be to formulated for his taste. I took that to mean they will have all the questions beforehand, so Bush/Rove can script all the answers, little room for attacks, etc.

Rove is smart enough not to put Bush in with the intellectual without a security net. It should be interesting to say the least.

the show.

I am not a big Regis and/or Kelly fan. My partner has it on so I catch glimpses, especially when political figures appear.

Kerry does a good job of explaining the issues intelligently, however this article may be right. He needs to at times dumb down his message and go for simple and chatchy turns of phrase to make his point. Remember the target audience! Kerry needs to appeal to the common person of modest intellect as well as the rest of us geniuses. :-)

Kerry needs to go dumb, right alongside Bush! Even dumbed down, our message is better than theirs.

college students say "kind of skippy"

kind of skippy?

kind of skippy?

:eyes:


honestly! :eyes: