Political debate moderators worse than ever

New speechwriter for Obama VP candidate, Bush speechwriter joins CBS News and a new look at the Bush legacy

The rhetorical presidency: The Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows has watched all 478 primary season debates so you don’t have to. In the September issue of the magazine, Fallows offers a thoughtful analysis of the speech-giving abilities of the candidates. “The problem for [Hillary] Clinton is that while she was nearly always at the top of her game, the game she was playing changed debate by debate,” Fallows relates. “In one encounter, she hailed Obama as a comrade in their joint struggle against the Bush administration and the media. In the next, she regretfully but relentlessly pointed out the ways in which he wasn’t prepared to lead.”

Of Obama, Fallows says, “One reason to argue that Obama would be a more successful speaker than, say, Nixon is the way he has already used his eloquence as a political tool. Repeatedly during this campaign, he has gotten himself out of serious political or policy problems with the Big Formal Speech.”