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Edited on Thu Sep-06-12 04:19 AM by No Elephants
Especially when it comes to politicians.
There are always exceptions to prove the rule. However, as a general rule, politicians really have to be pretty slick speakers or they would not get elected in the first place. Their talk certainly does not always lead to actions, other than trying to get re-elected, of course, or the country and the world we live in would be much different.
Often, their talk leads only to more talk. In fact, sometimes they go one step further than mere inaction and do the opposite of what their rhetoric suggests.
In life, I've found that skills can be very discrete. I used to do some interviews for hiring people. I learned that you can excel at all the skills that get you the job, like college and even grad school courses, standardized exams and interviews, and then not do the simplest things the job entails once you've been hired.
Anyway, when it comes to politicians, I've fallen for rhetoric one too many times. Actually, many too many times. I'm finally over it.
Now, I prefer to judge people only on their actions.
As for Cleaver in particular, I checked his wiki. He's been in politics since 1979, and in the House since 2005, but his wiki does not seem to list a single notworthy political accomplishment. In fact, overall, his wiki is extremely light for someone who has been in public office, even local office, since 1979.
On the bright side: he's the one who coined "sugar-coated Satan sandwich" and refused to switch his support from Hillary to Obama during the primaries simply because Obama was African American. At that time, I was strongly for Obama and may have been annoyed, but feel more objective now.
I have mixed feelings about his seeking to have ethics charges against Waters and Rangel dropped. I do feel there was a period where liberals in Congress were being targeted unequally. I would have to know more about Cleaver's motives before I made up my mind about why he did that, but I probably never will know.
But there are some down sides, too, like defaulting on a $1.3 million loan, an odd trip to London, and maybe a little hypocrisy about Obama.
All in all, I don't find the man's performance in office anywhere near as strong as you found the speech. (It's also entirely possible that the Obama campaign wrote the speech.)
In all, I'm sticking with my prior post, but I will keep an open mind to see what he does in the future.
Dr. Phil claims that past performance is the best indicator of future behavior, but people can always surprise us, for better or worse.
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