President Obama gives a powerful, and eloquent speech at the memorial in Tucson for the victims of Saturday’s shooting spree in Arizona.
To begin with, he has made the smart choice to work without a tele-prompter, and instead, simply read off of cards. This allows him to make an abundance of eye contact, and to focus more readily on the ideas behind the speech.
He starts the speech with a jarring attention getter, speaking of the “sudden hole torn in our hearts”. The image suggests a bullet wound. It’s a bold metaphor, and a great choice for an opener. From here, he moves into the stories of sacrifice and courage under fire that permeated the tragedy. A great speech is always filled with personal details, and there is an abundance here; the r.v. used by two victims to travel across the country, or the fact that the youngest victim, a 9 year old girl, was a softball player, and dreamed of being the first woman in Major League Baseball.
Obama never forgets his call to action. Every speech should have one. Toward the conclusion of the speech, Obama states: “we know we should not use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other.” It’s a profound plea for peace, made in a speech that was defined by chaos.
What do you think? I would rate this as one of our president’s finer moments.
And what is up with all the moralizing by 
), everybody, everybody bombs. Public speaking craft helps us reach a state of public speaking excellence, not public speaking perfection. We are all human, and on occasion, we fail. So what do you do if this happens to you? Get up off your feet, dust yourself off, and then move on. You failed, yes, but you are in good company, and you have faced the worst. You need not fear the podium again.