Soundbites from Inkless Wells

[bcholmes]

"Remember when Paul Martin was charismatic? I may be wrong about his other flaws (that's false modesty, by the way: I'm not wrong about his other flaws), but this much is certain: his charismatic days are gone and they are never coming back."

[...]

"Now, I bow to nobody except perhaps Stéphane Dion in my admiration for Stéphane Dion [...]

[...]

"This post was a long prelude to tonight's events, when John Edwards will deploy a patently exaggerated Carolina drawl and extend the week's ridiculous Democratic line — the world is divided into dividers and uniters, and the Republicans are the dividers — in the near-certainty he will be judged charismatic when it's over."

-- Inkless Wells is more hesitant than most to label Barack Obama "charismatic"

Comments

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

"Remember when Paul Martin was charismatic?

I don't remember when Paul Martin was charismatic. I remember when he seemed a determined and effective politician, back in his days as finance minister, speaking clearly and with a reasonable degree of passion in the House, but that is all.

I don't watch much television, so I didn't have a strong sense of him and so took on faith the print press' claim he was charismatic and wildly popular, but what exposure I had didn't actually support the view. I suspect the press was spending too much time talking to his Liberal supports and started to believe in his "charisma" by osmosis.