Talking Politics: The Substance of Style from Abe to "W", by Michael Silverstein, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003. Language: English, ISBN-10: 0971757550, ISBN-13: 978-0971757554.

If politics as practiced is talk, then how does a political figure--especially an American President--talk politics? If someone can be all style and no substance, is there any actual political substance to style?

Talking Politics looks at the alpha and omega of presidential image, its highs--Lincoln at Gettysburg--and lows--"W" at any microphone--demystifying the spun mists of political "message" on which an institution like the American presidency has always depended.

"No doubt about it. Abraham Lincoln gets the prize among United States presidents for the sheer concentrated political power of his rhetoric. When he set his—actual, own—mind to preparing his text, he could come up with gems such as his Second Inaugural and, of course, his 272-word “Dedicatory Remarks” at Gettysburg. Even his extemporaneous public and private talk, transcribed, shows great verbal ability. Now Mr. Lincoln had no Yale or Harvard degree as a credential of his education. But he understood the aesthetic—the style, if you will—for summoning to his talk the deeply Christian yet rationalist aspirations of America’s then four-score-and-seven-year-old polity. Striving to realize this complex style, he polished it and elaborated its contours. He embodied the style. So much so, that Lincoln’s great later texts, like the late, great man himself, now belong to the ages. They form part of the liturgy of what Robert Bellah has termed America’s “civil religion.”...

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