Words Matter: The Legacy of Bush
On Tuesday, Barack Obama, a man with a reputation as a master of words and rhetoric and the art of oration, will become the next president of the United States of America. His words at the 2004 Democratic Convention - "there is not a Black America and a White America...there is the United States of America"– catapulted him into the national spotlight. His speech on race will be studied for years to come, and his Inaugural Address is highly anticipated. George W. Bush, the man who now exits center stage, was never known to be a master with words; in fact, it was just less than a month ago that Karl Rove alerted Wall Street Journal readers that Bush actually enjoyed the act of reading – especially when a contest was involved. But as we say goodbye to the 43rd president, we have to acknowledge that, like every effective leader, he understood the power words have to influence, to persuade, to shape the actions of people. So here is an examination of some of the influen...