As this historic Democratic primary rages on, the battle of words ratchets up. While words are seemingly the coin of the realm to Barack Obama, the Change-Agent/Template Candidate, they’ve become shorthand for shallowness to Hillary Clinton, the self-proclaimed voice of experience.
Words, to be sure, are not more important than actions, solutions, Day 1 readiness and political predisposition. Otherwise, the pantheon of presidents would include Daniel Webster, William Jennings Bryan, Adlai Stevenson, Ted Sorensen and George Will.
Words, of course, depend upon context. They don’t do the heavy lifting; they prioritize what has to be hoisted. They don’t wage war; they provide a rationale and rallying cry for it. Edward R. Murrow once noted that “Winston Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” Obama understands the gift – and personifies the metaphor.
Clinton, however, could counter with the sage sentiments of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo who pragmatically noted: “You campaign in poetry; you govern in prose.”
This much we know. By any other phrasing, memorable observations or declamations would not, of course, be the same.
Who knows, for example, the upshot of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream