Govern in Poetry

December 12, 2013
Govern in Poetry
By TIMOTHY EGAN, New York Times

In advance of a long drive through the coulee country of eastern Washington, my friend Sam gave me an audio companion — a CD of the greatest presidential speeches of the 20th century. Um, thanks. I would sooner listen to Sarah Palin on Aristotle — you got that Greek philosophy thing going there — than hear the scratchy voices of long-dead politicians.

But between the pockmarked barrens of the desert West, those voices came alive, at times making thrilling music on behalf of the American struggle. Teddy Roosevelt, incongruously high-pitched, on a progressive future. His cousin Franklin on Social Security for old people left penniless during the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan hitting his spots at the D-Day commemoration. And overshadowing all, John F. Kennedy, who could make the most prosaic subjects into poetry.

What struck me, listening to these ghosts from White Houses past, was how they put the language to good use on behalf of lasting, life-altering change. Mario Cuomo’s dictum — campaign in poetry, govern in prose — had it wrong. Kennedy had it right: “If more politicians knew poetry,” he said, “and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a better place.”

Today, wallowed in the worst slump of his presidency, President Obama should reach for some words that will outlive him. This guy can write and he can speak, but he’s put those talents in a drawer for much of his presidency. In just the last few weeks, though, Obama has shown that his lyrical gifts could still get him off a road leading to yet another mediocre presidency.

His speech on income inequality as the defining issue of the day, and the stirring words in the rain on behalf of Nelson Mandela (overshadowed by press obsession with the selfie in the stadium), showed what Obama can do when he’s oratorically unleashed.

As a 19 year old, Obama wrote respectable poetry, published in his college literary magazine. As a politician running for Senate, and then the presidency, he showed a masterful way with words. I like to think it’s the Irish in him, and indeed no failed revolution, no call to arms, no funeral passed in Ireland without a poet making larger meaning of it all.

But then, fearful of his words being misinterpreted, Obama retreated. Grand themes, great turns of phrase were replaced by laundry lists and salesmanship disguised as statecraft. His low point was just after the health care rollout in October, when he sounded like a late-night TV pitchman, urging people to call a toll-free number for guidance — a vegematic huckster at the presidential podium.

Mind you, his opposition has set a pretty low bar. House Speaker John Boehner can barely talk; he speaks in the garbled, muttered asides of a man whose mouth is still numb from a visit to the dentist. Ted Cruz tied up the United States Senate reading “Green Eggs and Ham.” And “You lie!,” a shout from the seats of Congress during a presidential State of the Union address, pretty much summarizes Republican articulation in this age of incivility.

The best presidents, Washington and Lincoln among them, not only wrote poetry, but showed how to use well-turned words to get things done. Lincoln’s language was spare, which made it all the more powerful, and drawn from both the ages and the colloquialisms of his day. Teddy Roosevelt was moved by words — Upton Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” prompted him to support a huge change in how our food came to the table — and used words to move others. Just before he took office, this literate warrior wrote of his feeling on the loss of wildlife: “Whenever I hear of the destruction of a species I feel as if all the works of some great writer had perished.”

We remember Franklin Roosevelt on fear, Ronald Reagan on courage, John Kennedy on challenge. Reagan’s best words were written by Peggy Noonan, a gifted stylist who now applies her craft in the service of bad ideas and even worse predictions (she “felt” a Mitt Romney victory on election eve). But she gave Reagan his “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, words that will forever cling to the cliffs of Normandy. And she was the literary ventriloquist behind Reagan’s reaction to the death of the Challenger astronauts in 1986:

“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God.” With the last few words, he was quoting the poet and aviator John Magee.

There was no poetry in Richard Nixon’s dark soul. Jimmy Carter is now a published poet, though you would never know it by the way he governed. And both Bushes lacked an ear for verse to move a country. “Read my lips: No new taxes” and “I’m the decider” will never be chiseled into marble off the Capitol Mall.

The words of Nelson Mandela will be spoken by school children and parents, popes and politicians, for centuries. What makes them immortal are the themes — love is stronger than hatred, it’s harder to forgive than to conquer — spoken in the cadence of hope. For a president with three years left in his term, there is no better lilt.