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0 Comments 19 May 2009Jessica Clark

  • You know, sometimes it's nice to step away from all of the social media tools and just think about high-quality communication:
    "The reason to distinguish eloquence of thought from prettiness of expression is that the former tells you something important about the speaker, while the latter may or may not do so. Hired assistants can add a fancy phrase, much as gag writers can supply a joke. Not even his greatest admirers considered George W. Bush naturally expressive, but in his most impressive moment, soon after the 9/11 attacks, he delivered a speech full of artful writerly phrases, eg: "Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done." Good for him, and good for his staff.

    Rhetorical polish, that is, can be a staff-enhanced virtue. The eloquence that comes from original thought is much harder to hire, or to fake. This is the sort of eloquence we've seen from Obama often enough to begin to expect."

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Jessica Clark

Jessica Clark - who has written 468 posts on Beyond the Echo Chamber.

Jessica Clark is the co-author of this site and the related book, Beyond the Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media. She is the research director at the American University's Center for Social Media, and a regular writer and commentator on media, culture and politics.

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