Even before the suspicion that the President was hearing voices, his rhetoric was being carefully studied. Writing before the first debate, Stanley Fish reported that his freshman English class was giving Bush the rhetorical edge. But that debate changed things. Stephen Greenblatt said Bush could have succeeded like Antony except that the candid camera caught him in "an astonishing range of emotions: confusion, annoyance and something like rage."
That's what happens when he gets off message. My former student Jonathan Riehl published an article in the Congressional Quarterly about the Republican convention. He noted the "relentless repetition" of the message, the "remarkably similar vocabulary and phraseology."
Now this video clip just in (via Jonathan). Who needs a "passive transducer" anyway?
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