Nib of the Week

How smart, young writers can overcome their handicap.

Forty-six years ago this week, Jimmy Carter gave the worst Oval Office speech in American history. “A Crisis of Confidence” — better known today as the “Malaise Speech” — is not only worse than older readers will remember. It’s worse than younger readers can probably imagine. Most of speech’s problems were political: the message, the messenger, and the moment were catastrophically out of sync. And yet, somehow, the writing itself was almost as bad. Remember the setting. It’s summer 1979. Stagflation, gas lines, another recession looming. President Carter, his approval rating now in the low 30s, had already given three major speeches about a seemingly intractable energy crisis. The fourth - scheduled for the evening of July 5 — Carter canceled at the last minute. Then he vanished. No, seriously. He left the White House for a 10-day emotional and spiritual retreat at Camp David, where he met with Important People about What Was Really Wrong With America. On July 15, he returned to Washington to finally reveal his plan to revive the country. This is the first time Americans heard from their president since he disappeared in the middle of a crisis. Everyone is waiting with baited breath. And Carter opens his speech: “Good evening. This is a special night for me.” Say what? “Exactly three years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for president of the United States.” Carter talks about his convention speech, three years earlier. Then Carter talks about all the other speeches he’s given since! Then he talks about the speech he just canceled — and how great it was going to be! Then he talks about his Me Time with celebrities at Camp David: “It has been an extraordinary ten days, and I want to share with you what I’ve heard.” In the first seven paragraphs of his speech, Carter uses some version of the words I or me 21 times! He spends the next three minutes quoting his Camp David guests. And what do you know, almost all of their thoughts aren’t about the energy crisis at all. They’re about… Jimmy Carter! Eight hundred words into a speech about a national economic crisis, the president has only talked about two subjects: himself and what other people say about him. Finally Carter gets around to his big takeaway from all his deep conversations and soul-searing. He was right all along: “These ten days confirmed my belief… but it also bore out some of my long-standing concerns…” Eight of Carter’s next nine independent clauses feature the word I as the subject: “I know… I've worked… I have… I have… I want… I want… I do… I do…” This guy, huh? After nine minutes exonerating himself from blame for the country’s problems, Carter hones in on the real culprit: the American people! “The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.” The Nib can’t even. Note the threat Carter diagnoses is “invisible in ordinary ways” — that is, to people less perceptive than Carter. He laments people’s doubts about “the meaning of their lives” and “loss of unity of purpose.” But he just spent nine minutes congratulating himself for his personal virtue and focus. At this point it’s clear, the malaise speech is not even about malaise. It’s about how much better a person Jimmy Carter thought he was than the selfish, venal, mouth-breathing ingrates he was trying to lead! No surprise, then, that when Carter finally gets around to the policy substance of the speech — the energy crisis — almost every solution he proposes involves giving President Carter more power. The one exception? Urging the 224,999,999 Americans who didn’t just helicopter up to the mountains on a whim for some Me Time to stop using so much energy! Finally, if you had any doubt, yes: even Carter’s peroration is obnoxious! “In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone.” What the &$#@ is the matter with this guy? "I will not do it alone"? How vain, how arrogant, how out of touch did Carter have to be to not say, “… but I can not do it alone” there? Vain, arrogant, and out-of-touch enough — after a half-hour, self-congratulatory harangue of his countrymen — to then say, three sentences before signing off: “Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country.” The lesson this week is very simple. Read the Malaise Speech, and then never write like that. Until next week… keep writing!

How did the Vice President "sell the stakes" in Europe?

This Independence Day, a reminder to writers everywhere that the greatest nation in the history of the world was founded with an essay. If you haven't read it in a while, it's worth the five minutes. Good writing really can change the world. Happy Fourth — and God Bless America! In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Until next week... keep writing!

Last week’s Nib presented the five parts of classical rhetorical structure in one convenient speechwriting cheat sheet. For the next few Nibs, we’ll see what that structure looks like in practice, with a close reading of the most talked about speech of the year (so far!): Vice President J.D. Vance’s February remarks to the Munich Security Conference. Vance’s speech made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic for its stringent criticism of our European allies’ retreat from free speech and democracy. (You can watch the speech here and read the full text here .) Pundits have understandably focused on the substance and strategy of Vance’s speech. Aspiring speechwriters should focus instead on its structure — because the speech’s framing is one of the reasons it had such an impact. Let’s start with Part I: The Introduction.  Remember, the purpose of a speech’s intro is to grab the audience’s attention. The best way to do this is usually with a clear, direct statement of the speech’s thesis. By announcing up front the problem the speaker wants to highlight, the solution he’s proposing, or both, a good intro simultaneously makes a speech more persuasive and the audience more persuadable. Did Vance? Well, the vice president opens his remarks with 300 words of pleasantries. That feels like a lot. On the other hand, it was a long speech. In Munich, Vance was technically his audience’s guest. And he knew that in a few minutes he’d be ripping them. There was also some breaking news about a terrorist attack that required some sensitive attention, too. So in this case, the longer-than-normal windup was appropriate. Notice, though: once Vance gets into his formal remarks, he goes all-in: “But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it's important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values -- values shared with the United States of America.” Boom. No hedging. No bank shots. Right out of the shoot, Vance unequivocally tells his audience — European leaders, the U.S. media, etc. — exactly what this speech is going to be about. Task #1 is accomplished: he has their attention. The lesson for aspiring speechwriters here is simple: resist the urge to ease into your argument. Don’t fumfer around. It’s not disarming; it’s annoying. One of the greatest signs of respect a speaker can show his audience is to not waste their time. “Yesterday, December 7, 1941…” “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen…” “If we are mark’d to die, we are enow / To do our country loss; and if to live, / The fewer men, the greater share of honour.” You only a have few seconds to win your audience’s attention. Don’t waste them on throat-clearing. Sentence one, paragraph one: light the candle. Clearly announce your intention so that you can then get into the narrative of your argument — where the persuasive process really begins. Next Nib, we’ll look at Part II of Vance’s speech: The Beginning of the Story. Until next week… keep writing!