Be a Poor Speaker at Your Own Peril

On the latest Dishcast, Andrew Sullivan interviewed the ever-cantankerous Chris Matthews—nearly 80 and still sharp enough to cut glass. Matthews, with his gravelly baritone steeped in decades of political brawls, made a blunt but brilliant point: the failed American presidents—Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden—shared one glaring flaw. They couldn’t talk. They mumbled, stumbled, or sounded like nervous librarians scolding kids in the back row.

Now contrast that with the great performers of the Oval Office—Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama. Each could command a room, a camera, or a nation, not because they had better policies, but because they could speak. Kennedy practiced endlessly, even in the bathtub, channeling Churchill’s thunderous cadence while scrubbing his armpits. Reagan rehearsed like an actor because—well, he was one. Matthews’ thesis? If you’re a politician and can’t speak, you’re in the wrong line of work. There’s no excuse. Oratory is not some divine gift—it’s a muscle, and you’d damn well better train it.

I couldn’t agree more. In my forty years teaching college students, my most potent teaching tool wasn’t my syllabus or my grading rubric—it was my voice. My persona. My ability to perform indignation, irony, sarcasm, and revelation—all in the same breath. I played a character: part prophet, part stand-up comic, part disappointed parent watching the nation stick a fork in the toaster. And that outraged character got through to students. It entertained while it educated. It gave ideas a delivery system my students could remember.

So when I watch politicians stumble through speeches like deer on roller skates, I want to scream. You are leading a country. You should not sound like a sedated hostage reading a ransom note. At their worst, some of these men sound like toddlers in a supermarket, lost and wailing, unable to pronounce the word “mommy.” And yet they expect to run a superpower.

Chris Matthews is right: if you can’t speak, you can’t lead.