How to Ad Lib a Speech from Notes, Eloquently — Vice President Biden’s Quietly Insightful Eulogy of Senator Warren Rudman

© 2012 Peter Free

 

30 November 2012

 

 

Citation — to the video clip of the Vice President speaking about deceased Senator Warren Rudman

 

Vice President Biden Speaks at a Reception for Late Senator Warren Rudman, The White House (29 November 2012) (11:29 minute video clip)

 

 

Four points

 

(1) Talking, in a way that people will pay attention to, is difficult.

 

(2) Demonstrating sincerity, in our ritualized partisan culture, is hard.

 

(3) Synopsizing someone’ else’s life, in an admirably crafted sentence or two, more difficult still.

 

(4) Doing all these things smoothly, seemingly off-the-cuff, a vanishing art.

 

Democratic Vice President Joe Biden pulled all this off yesterday, while eulogizing Republican Senator Warren Rudman (New Hampshire)— in one of the most subtly memorable tributes that I have witnessed.

 

 

Snippets

 

The Vice President said of Senator Rudman:

 

He was forthright.  He was frugal.  And he was fair.  [at 0:57 to 1:02 minutes into the video]

 

There was never a man or woman, at least when I was with him, that he ever looked at or spoke with, who he didn’t treat with dignity.  [at 1:24 to 1:33 minutes]

 

His honesty could be searing.  Absolutely searing.  But his compassion was always profound. [at 5:39 to 5:49 minutes]

 

© 2012 White House and Vice President Joe Biden, Vice President Biden Speaks at a Reception for Late Senator Warren Rudman, The White House (29 November 2012) (11:29 minute video clip)

 

 

Then, the Vice President’s most artfully telling summation of Senator Rudman’s integrity

 

After making those comments, Democrat Joe Biden put Republican Senator Rudman’s integrity into the most laudatory context possible, by telling a short anecdote:

 

Biden had supported Republican President George H.W. Bush’s nomination of Justice David Souter to the Supreme Court — after the painful Robert Bork fiasco — because Rudman had personally vouched for the comparatively unknown Souter’s non-ideological open mindedness.

 

Biden had trusted his political opponent’s insight and integrity so much, that he had acted favorably on the latter’s judgment of Justice Souter’s judicial temperament.

 

For those of us who are old fashioned, and integrity our guiding rock, there is no higher tribute.

 

 

The moral? — It does not take a gift for soaring oratory to say memorably uplifting things

 

More gifted orators — President Obama comes to mind — could learn from a man that many elitists like to look down on.