a good man speaking well

Meg and I are watching John Adams, a recent HBO miniseries that cleaned up this year at the Emmy's. For those of you who like period dramas, and especially for those of you who want to brush up on early American history, you gotta check this out. The device of narrative, adapted to film, is such a superior way of teaching history, in comparison to the stale, bloodless, bullet points most of us had to regurgitate from textbooks in jr high and high school.

Watching the series through the prism of contemporary politics has been especially interesting. Along with its meticulous attention to detail, its probing analysis of colonial gender roles, and its innovative cinematography, what struck me about John Adams was its representation of the revolutionary politicians of the latter 18th century.

21st century folks are accustomed to marathon multimillion dollar campaigns, secret service squads, and media hype. But before the spectacle of stadium sized Conventions, before the blogosphere, before the advent of 24 hour election coverage, and before $150,000 luxury clothing spending sprees, politicians of days past balanced statesmanship with running the farm, avoiding the pox, or ensuring their children learning proper latin. They were a different breed of politician altogether.

Above all, the revolutionary politicians depicted in John Adams exhibit a sheer command and mastery over language. Their penchant for speaking and for writing - their simple, stern, structured, colonial prose - is a far, far cry from modern-day candidates, who parrot lines their speech writers feed them and who reason in soundbytes.

So passeth a fine thing in this world. Political discourse in this country has fallen from the height of logical argumentation to the dirty depths of name-calling, ad hominems, and fear-mongering.

Here's the thing. Politics is inherently rhetorical; that is, it's a business that revolves around mustering arguments, debating, informing, persuading. In classical times and in Revolutionary times, the idea of a politician was never, ever separated from the idea of a rhetorician. Both activities - that of politicking and that of speaking eloquently - were considered one in the same.

The identification between politicking and speaking eloquently, however, no longer exists. We live in an age in which are presidential candidates focus more on managing their images than on delivering coherent sentences. Just read a Palin or McCain debate transcript, and you'll trip over a tangled mess of disconnected statements, characterized by run-on sentences, fragments, stutterings, worn out catchphrases, errors in diction, as well as a total lack of transition terms.

Such and such were the days of old. So much for men (and women) speaking well. I miss the prosaic politics of old. If you do to, watch John Adams. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.