One of the great tragedies of our age is that “Oratory” is nearly a lost art.
It’s an age when Barack Obama is considered a “great speaker”.
But Martin Luther King was one of the great orators of modern times; to listen to his great speeches is to hear one of the summits of what was once one of the great western traditions.
And he gave few speeches better than “I Have Seen The Mountaintop”.
The cable channel “Bounce” had all MLK programming on last night. It was just films with virtually no narration. From the about 1963 forward. Yes, he was one of the greatest speakers of all time. Every time he spoke, it was incredible.
Also noted….the secular left who praires “Dr” Martin Luther King forget that he was “Rev.” MLK, who received his “Dr” in Bible Studies. He was very much a Christian minister.
Interestingly, the first Time cover of MLK in the 50s mentioned that he wasn’t much of an orator. That wasn’t quite true; it took a while for white audiences, even those that supported him, to get used to black Southern Baptist preacher cadences.
Obama has never struck me as a good speaker. The Left reveres him for it, but honestly, his cadence and emphasis is moderately good, but it’s not stellar. In comparison to W or Bubba, he’s a Churchill, but as a standalone orator he’s at best 1-sigma from the mean.
I think the difference for Dr. King is that he did it without a teleprompter and sounded good, and, quite frankly, like he meant what he was saying. Obama sounds decent with TOTUS helping, but get him away from TOTUS, and he will have problems.
And don’t even get me started on how Obama can’t even fake sincerity. Yeesh.