Why Bush's Speech Was No "Bullhorn Moment"

President Bush's Thursday night speech was a fascinating example of the drama, calculation, and challenge of big-time, high wire political rhetoric. Although for millions of television viewers, including myself, it was a bit uncomfortable to transition from a reality game show about "survivors" voluntarily battling the elements in Guatemala to a situation where nature created real devastation, real survivors, and real fatalities. The juxtaposition was disorienting, and, once again, demonstrated the sometimes absurd co-existence of pop culture and politics.

By now, the speech has been thoroughly analyzed and critiqued. The overall media assessment went something like "Well, it was a good speech, but it was no 'bullhorn moment' for the President," a reference to Bush's well-received, post-9/11 rallying cry at Ground Zero. Also, commentators have pounced on the looming unanswered questions regarding the massive federal reconstruction plan Bush outlined for the Gulf Coast. These questions include who will execute it, where will all the money come from, and how will fiscal conservatives be persuaded to support the new spending. Finally, the political impact of Bush's comments about poverty and race and his acceptance of full responsibility for the deeply flawed federal response have been discussed and debated as well.

Much of the address itself was typically direct, straightforward, pragmatic Bush. He used numbers (500,000 evacuees received emergency help, 50 tons of medical supplies shipped, 60 million dollars appropriated) to show tangible governmental action. His program proposals, a refocusing of prior policy ideas such as enterprise zones and homesteading, were easily understood.

However, something that hasn't been talked about as much was the President's simultaneous use of a grander rhetorical style than we are accustomed to hearing from him. First, there was the theatrical setting. The nighttime scene was well-executed: President Bush walking alone through the French Quarter's Jackson Square, the podium waiting before serenely lit, historic structures. In the speech, Bush offered appropriate historical analogies (the colonists' struggles to survive winter, the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, the dust bowl), and vivid description (speaking to those who "sit on the steps of a porch where a home once stood or sleep in a cot in a crowded shelter," and visualizing a day when "the street cars will once again rumble down St. Charles"). The end of the speech employed a poignant and elegant metaphor: "In this place, there is a custom for the funerals of jazz musicians. The funeral procession parades slowly through the streets, followed by a band playing a mournful dirge as it moves to the cemetary. Once the casket has been laid in place, the band breaks into a joyful 'second line'--symbolizing the triumph of the spirit over death. Tonight the Gulf Coast is still coming through the dirge, yet we will live to see the second line." Undeniably eloquent and powerful and appropriate.

And it didn't work.

The pundits, the public, and perhaps, most importantly, gulf coast residents appear highly skeptical about the speech. I believe part of that skepticism was created by the President himself. For five years, he carefully crafted a reputation as a "plain talker," a straight shooter who says what he means and means what he says. The crafting of that image implicitly denigrated the value of grand eloquence as elitist and out of touch. However, every president will confront moments when the people expect--and need--an ability to transcend everyday language and image. Hurricane Katrina's aftermath emerged as one of those moments.

The President's first several attempts at addressing the Katrina devastation stayed true to his communication image--direct, ordinary, and stubbornly folksy. But something about this situation required more, and the White House realized that. However, by repeatedly valorizing directness and smirking at verbosity, Bush has limited his own communication options. So when the White House turns a disaster site into an artificially lit stage, the people now see a stage. And when he waxes poetic, the public doesn't buy it, because, for five years, President Bush didn't buy it. So why wasn't the New Orleans speech a "bullhorn moment"? Because the bullhorn moment was just that--a moment. Two sentences spoken through a bullhorn that struck a chord, because of their directness and clarity of purpose. But more was needed on Thursday night. And when the President ended the night with his complex and lengthy metaphor, a metaphor both delicate and dark, many Americans saw not their steadfast 9/11 leader, but a group of invisible speechwriters, trying too hard.

The World Lurches Again

It's mind-boggling how quickly our lives change these days. During the past five years, we've experienced events that bring with them seismic societal shifts in what seems like a week's time. The 2000 presidential election crisis. September 11, 2001. The Iraq war. And now, the carnage of Hurricane Katrina.

I was gathering some recycling materials today and found a South Bend Tribune newspaper from August 28. That was seven days ago. I was surprised to discover only a single story about Katrina, on page three. That seems inconceivable now--that the storm was only a single bead in the kaleidoscope of our existence a mere seven days ago. Amazingly, there were more pressing matters: a mother's protest during the president's monthlong vacation, the laborious and contentious Iraqi constitutional debate, and the romantic travails of a fictional 40-year old virgin. By Friday, however, 95 percent of the front page of the New York Times was devoted to the hurricane, complete with a haunting photograph of a dead victim floating in the floodwaters. Above that photo the unfathomable headline "Despair and Lawlessness Grip New Orleans as Thousands Remain Stranded in Squalor." That the images we witness through our televisions easily confirm the outrageous claim of that headline only adds to our sense of overwhelming and disbelief.

So the world shifts yet again. We haven't resolved any of the previous crises but already we're left to ponder where this latest upheaval will take us. By now, however, one can predict three consequences. First, sincere expressions of generosity and acts of compassion will flow abundantly from all corners, and we'll try hard not to congratulate ourselves too much for doing what should be expected. Second, new "celebrities" will emerge. People we didn't know anything about, like New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and FEMA Director Michael Brown will become media fixtures, just as Katherine Harris, Mohammed Atta, and Jessica Lynch bubbled to the surface during past lurchings. And, finally, somehow, we will manage to become more divided. You can already feel it in the air. Public officials' decreasingly subtle positioning on issues of blame and responsibility. The undeniable emergence of race. The sensing of political opportunity within the ruins of tragedy. Paradoxically, compassion, celebrity and division have become the only certainty in chaotic times. That paradox raises a question and an opportunity: Is it possible to lurch toward compassion and away from the other two?

Perhaps hope lies in the depths of our own dismay. One of the recurring sentiments of the past week has been "I cannot believe this is happening in the United States of America." And it is true. The images and language describing the gulf coast's destruction and its peoples' plight are, literally, foreign to us. Words such as "refugee" and "squalor" and "anarchy" are the language of a different world, a "third world" far away. Maybe, now, in Katrina's painful wake, we will finally get it. We will know not just what a refugee is, but remember how one feels, how one lives and dies. We will finally understand, not how lucky our national lives have been, but how unlucky much of the rest of the world always is. And then maybe, after we take care of Biloxi and New Orleans, our eyes will turn to Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

But it's an uphill journey. Our nation embraces a vision of "exceptionalism" that requires an aloof distance from the weaker and less mighty. Notice, already, the refugees have been rechristened "evacuees." Already, the distance is returning.