The words said, “I am deeply sorry.” But the media and millions of online and television viewers heard: “My feet are to the fire. Let me say what I have to say and get out of here as quickly as I can.”
Rep. Anthony Weiner’s “Naughty Tweets” press conference yesterday was the latest installment in Washington’s sexual follies. This performance was long on media-inspired mea culpas, however, but short on sincerity. We knew that by the voice of the speaker, or rather, we never heard his voice at all.
The Pack Was Left Hungry
The leading actor in yesterday’s drama was late in arriving, and the reporters could only roam the room restlessly, murmuring. When the sacrificial lamb approached the stage, they followed hungrily, in a pack. But what they found was lean fare, and unsatisfying.
In all speeches and presentations, visuals and vocals dominate. What audiences see and hear reveals practically everything they need to know about who you are as a speaker and how you feel about yourself and your topic. Yesterday, Mr. Weiner gave all of us virtually nothing to see. He read from notes, hardly glancing up at his listeners, without any facial expression. There was no visual component to give his presentation life.
Words, Words, Words
In Hamlet, Polonius asks: “What do you read, my lord?” Hamlet, feigning madness, answers: “Words, words, words.”
Like the troubled prince, Rep. Weiner gave us nothing else. Reading emotionlessly from a manuscript, he left his audience without anyone actually talking to them.
The expressions were standard-issue: merely correct phrases, hollowly spoken: “inappropriate conversations,” “explicit nature,” “sadly,” “I haven’t told the truth.” And even more noticeably empty of emotion: “I’m deeply sorry,” “I apologize,” “deeply ashamed,” and “my terrible judgment and actions.”
The more we read on stage, the less we say. And relating more strongly to a manuscript than an audience will never bring us sympathy. When we lead with our voice rather than our script, however, allowing our feelings to emerge as we speak slowly and meaningfully—when we speak from the heart—an audience will respond with genuine feeling and, sometimes, with affection.
189 Words Sounds like a Lie
Would you race through a written statement if you had something heartfelt to say to loved ones you had let down? Apart from Mr. Weiner’s expressionless delivery, his pace let us hear his lack of sincerity.
To place his performance in context, I compared his speaking rate (i.e., words per minute) with four other prominent Democratic speakers: Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Barney Frank. I included Mr. Frank specifically because he is a conspicuously rapid speaker.
The average American speaks at 120 to 180 words per minute. Here are the speech rates for the politicians I compared to Rep. Weiner:
- Harry Truman (“Lobster Speech”): 145 words per minute
- John F. Kennedy (April 21, 1961 press conference): 116 words per minute
- Barack Obama (December 7, 2010 press conference): 149 words per minute
- Barney Frank (January 9, 2009 press conference): 193 words per minute
And Rep. Weiner’s speech rate at his Naughty Tweets press conference? -- 189 words per minute. I also compared this rate with an earlier speech of Mr. Weiner’s on the House floor (“Weiner rips Republican Party“), and found a speech rate of 169 words per minute.
Speech rate alone does not determine truthfulness or sincerity. But racing through a confessional speech at a clip that exceeds the national norm is odd, to say the least. Without pauses to indicate reflection, or to allow your deep emotional commitment to sink in; with only the shallow cadences of someone reading a script, an apology will sound perfunctory and hollow. Such was the case with Rep. Weiner, who allowed words on a page to smother his conscience.
