I Was Surprised By My Voting Record
In recent interviews as a possible replacement for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, Caroline Kennedy did not fare too well. For example, according to the New York Daily News
In a 30-minute session with The News on Saturday, Kennedy punctuated her answers with “you know” more than 200 times. “Um” was fairly constant, too.
Transcripts of her interviews with other media outlets showed the same problem. She said “you know” at least 130 times to The New York Times and more than 80 times on New York 1.
As one example, when asked if President Bush’s tax cuts on the wealthy should be repealed immediately
Well, you know, that’s something, obviously, that, you know, in principle and in the campaign, you know, I think that, um, the tax cuts, you know, were expiring and needed to be repealed.
You Know Who
I’m no public speaker, not by any stretch. I sometimes step on my crank. I’m not going to insist that our public servants all speak eloquently. In fact, according to this, Caroline Kennedy is in pretty good company
Caroline Kennedy is not the only politician to suffer from, you know, a verbal tic. Yes, she may have used the phrase some 144 times in a New York Times interview. But she can reassure herself that she’s in pretty good company. Here are some other multiple offenders.
1) Barack Obama
The President-elect is widely regarded as one of today’s great rhetoricians. But that doesn’t prevent him from falling back on the odd ‘uh’ when the talking gets tough. And by odd, we mean some 30 times in this David Letterman clip. The nickname Obam-uh wasn’t far behind.
2) John McCain
McCain may have lost the presidential race but he certainly didn’t lose the repetition war. His obsession with the phrase ‘My friends’ won him ridicule in the campaign and this splendid article in Slate. Sadly for McCain, he just didn’t have enough of them at the end of the day.
3) Tony Blair
Yes, he dropped his t’s. And he used almost as many ‘you knows’ as Kennedy. But the tic that really defined Blair’s speech? That would be ‘Look,…’ As in ‘Look, you know you’ve heard it many, many times.’
4) Bill Clinton
Life was ‘a big deal’ for the former President. According to one report, he used the phrase to describe everything from the deer population in Arkansas to the latest bill against crime. Everything that is except for his own heart surgery. His description of that? Inevitably, it was ‘no big deal.’
5) Bob Dole
The royal ‘we’ is one thing. But Bob Dole’s constant references to himself in the third person were, well, just weird. And that was before he’d even begun to advertise Viagra. Kennedy will have to go a long way to compete.
I’m not going to insist on Toastmasters, but self-awareness would be nice. According to Fox News (and numerous other sources)
Kennedy offered no excuses for why she failed to vote in a number of elections since registering in New York City in 1988, including in 1994 when Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was up for re-election as the state’s senior senator.
“I was really surprised and dismayed by my voting record,” she told the Associated Press. “I’m glad it’s been brought to my attention.