So just how good a speaker is the new senator-elect from Florida, Marco Rubio? Conservatives are rightly highly impressed with Rubio's oratory, especially his election night victory speech. However, even liberals are giving high marks to Rubio's speaking abilities. John McWhorter of The New Republic even commits liberal sacrilege by grudgingly admitting (after slamming the speeches of other conservatives) that Rubio is a better speaker than Obama. Of course, this also scares him as well:
Marco Rubio, in his victory speech, was the exception, and showed as he often has why he is the Tea Party’s real secret weapon. Starting out with gushy God talk and closing by stressing that he is a “son of exiles,” Rubio is – let’s face it – a better Obama in his way. His Christianity will always be clear to those who care, and his foreign forebears are ones who fled Communism. At first we were to suppose that Obama’s mongrelism made him “like America,” but the leftist Kenyan business is ripe for the Becks and D’Souzas among us to frame as alien, never mind that Indonesia is a Muslim country. Rubio’s foreignness is more cuddly, immune to Fox News-style demagoguery.
Plus Rubio is a natural talker. No stagy incantations of lines based on things other people said long ago; no giggling; no props; no wandering off topic. He can rub a noun and a verb together, with minimal attendance to notes. As a result, like Bill Clinton, he seems intelligent in a way that Paladino and O’Donnell do not, and approachably human and on the ground in a way that Paul, despite his active mind, cannot.
Yes, no props like no annoying teleprompters.
McWhorter couldn't resist writing this reluctant praise of Rubio without the requisite slams against other conservatives, including Rand Paul and Christine O'Donnell. However, his criticism of Rand Paul's victory speech is so laughably bizarre that it is hard not to be amused by it:
Rand Paul opened his victory speech trying to channel a bit of Obamatude by mouthing earnestly “I Have a Message!” Get it? Substitute “dream” for message, and well, that sounds like, you know. That is, the “you know” who Paul claimed he would have walked with in the sixties if he had been there, despite questioning the Civil Rights Act.
But Senator Paul, you have to say it like you mean it. He mumbled some thank you-type cliches and then abruptly lurched into his “I Have a Message” announcement, complete with an abrupt new tone of voice. It reminded me of a guy who auditioned for a production of West Side Story I was connected with long ago, who walked out to stage center, stood still, threw his hands up over his head palms forward, and started singing “Zippity Doo Dah” in a joyless rasp, rather like Jimmy Durante at gunpoint.
Hey John! Any possibility of finding that West Side Story audition video (if it exists) and posting it to YouTube? I am now very curious to see someone sing "Zippity Doo Dah" in a joyless rasp like Jimmy Durante at gunpoint.
Anyway, thanks for confirming what conservatives already know: Marco Rubio is a great speaker which is what liberals fear.
