Talking about others, not yourself: Kissinger, Biden, Clinton, Madonna

 A little bit of “I” goes a long way in public speaking.

Aristotle highlighted the importance in rhetoric of establishing one’s own credibility. He called it “ethos” and defined it as one of the essential “modes of persuasion”.

But beware: referring to oneself in a speech is like salt in cooking: a pinch enhances the flavour, a fistful makes it unpalatable. Some of the recent tributes to John McCain and Aretha Franklin illustrate the point.  

Henry Kissinger was among those who went easiest on the first person in the weekend’s eulogies. Throughout his speech in the Washington National Cathedral, he focused on Senator McCain’s moral and personal qualities, only referring to himself once, with a personal anecdote about the end of the Vietnam War.

“Vietnamese captors during the final phase of negotiations [in 1973] offered to release John so that he could return with me on the official plane that had brought me to Hanoi. Against all odds, he thanked them for the offer but refused it. When we finally met, his greeting was both self-effacing and moving. ‘Thank you for saving my honor.’"

By referring to his personal role, Kissinger gave the story added credibility, but the real point remained McCain and his “self-effacing” courage.

Watch Henry Kissinger pay tribute to John McCain here (2m 33s)

Former Vice-President Joe Biden was more heavy-handed when it came to injecting himself into his tribute to McCain. His speech was widely praised afterwards for its “powerful” and “moving” evocation of McCain, and he even won a brief laugh for his aw-shucks introduction: “My name is Joe Biden, I’m a Democrat, and I love John McCain.” Admittedly, a flash of humour can redeem much, but Biden then stumbled, in rhetorical terms, by dwelling far too long on his own early achievements in life.

“I was a young United States Senator. I got elected when I was 29. I had the dubious distinction of being put on the formulations committee, which the next youngest person was 14 years older than me. And I spent a lot of time traveling the world because I was assigned responsibility, my colleagues in the Senate knew I was chairman of the European Affairs subcommittee, so I spent a lot of time at NATO and then the Soviet Union.”

Watch Joe Biden talk about himself here (2m 31s)

Bill Clinton made the same mistake of thinking he was the subject of his own tribute in Detroit a day earlier. He started his eulogy to Aretha Franklin by putting himself and Hillary firmly centre-stage, using the same tone of down-home modesty that Biden used.

“We started out not as a president, a first lady, a senator, a secretary of state. We started out as like Aretha groupies or something. I mean, you know, she was only about four years older than me - five years older than Hillary. So when we are getting out of college is when she finally got her big breakthrough.”

Watch Bill Clinton talk about himself and Hillary here (37 seconds)

The most egregiously self-centred of all the recent tributes, however, came from pop star Madonna. She was invited to say something at a music industry awards ceremony about Aretha Franklin immediately after her death was announced.

Clumsily, Madonna simply used Franklin as a springboard to embark on a five-minute speech about her own difficult start in life as a professional entertainer: “Aretha Louise Franklin changed the course of my life. I left Detroit when I was 18. with 35 dollars in my pocket. My dream was to make it as a professional dancer after years of struggling and being broke.”

The result was way too much Madonna, and not enough Franklin. Unsurprisingly, soul music fans tore into her with a flurry of scathing tweets: “Madonna paying homage to herself: heavy on the mayonnaise,” as one of them said.

Watch Madonna pay tribute to herself here (23 seconds) 

Charles Fleming - Paris, 3rd September 2018

You can read my other articles about rhetoric and public speakers in the news on the Expression/Impression blog, available here.