Senator Barack Obama threatens to end the increasing democratization of presidential speech enjoyed under President George W. Bush by dragging the political discourse upward and over the heads of many Americans. Where as Bush stayed within an elementary school range Obama’s high school vocabulary will leave many citizens out of the debate wondering what all the fuss is about. Since his appeal in the primaries proved to be mostly among the more educated he has chosen to address them alone employing 10th grade words to describe the complexities of the problems the nation faces.
“The fact that he even has a vocabulary shows he’s not one of us,” noted Fred Flintstone of Bedrock. “He talks about our children’s futures but my kids can’t understand him. They’ve never had any trouble understanding President Bush and they’re older now”
“I hope he doesn’t plan to impress the terrorists with his fancy Harvard talk,” says Jethro Bodine of Beverly Hills. “All they learn in school is how to hate Jews and Americans and make atomic bombs. They don’t even know the Bible.”
“You know why his speeches are on You Tube? Its because everyone has to listen to them five times with a dictionary beside them to have any idea what he’s talking about,” said George of the Jungle. “I don’t see why he can’t draw pictures or better yet make cartoons to explain how diplomacy works.”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” said Tarzan. “Big White Yale Man I understand. We’re right. They’re wrong. We’re good. They’re bad. You’re either our slave or our enemy. Everybody in world understands him. No problem.”
“If diplomacy is going to have any chance of working you’ve got to keep the message clear and simple,” says Archie Bunker of Queens. “You can take most of George W’s speeches and act them out in a few gestures that foreigners can understand. A lot of these foreigners don’t even speak English you know. ”
Don Arrup
Satire1
