'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

DUBYA: PERHAPS NOT XANAX BUT

DUBYA: PERHAPS NOT XANAX BUT VOICE LESSONS? The Washinton Post's Tom Shales was one of the first to suggest that perhaps the android-like, affectless behavior of the Prez at thursday's news conference was due to him being on some kind of anti-depressant medication. Today, the peerless Maureen Dowd picks up the theme, titling her perceptive column on the event, "The Xanax Cowboy."

I have a different explanation to suggest, drawing on my recollection of Maggie Thatcher's early months in office. As an aspirant to the PM's office in No. 10 Downing St., she had been a pretty electrifying stump speaker, well able to rally the Conservative troops after the debacle of the end of the Heath Prime Ministership. But once she had become la suprema that same feisty expressivity seemed not to serve her well in her new role. She sounded, well, just plain shrill.

I was living and working in Beirut at the time, and the main way I kept up with the news of the 'Old Country' was through a small short-wave radio. When Maggie's voice spoke on it in those early months, the tranny would jump around all my writing table with the vibes from her voice!

Then, suddenly, the vibes were gone. The tranny stayed still. Maggie had lost her shrillitude. And for a while there-- until she discovered a slightly more resonant and Churchillian tone (which as I recall took some time)-- she just sounded flat. Soon enough, the news came out in the British media that the PM had-- at the urging of staff who'd been worried by the criticisms of her excess of expressivity-- been taking voice lessons.

Well, we all know that Dubya, too, has been coming in for a lot of flak-- especially from some foreign quarters-- for the "feisty expressivity" he has displayed in some of his utterances over recent months. It is not beyond the bounds of reason that Karl Rove, Andy Card or other political handlers would have taken a leaf out of the great Lady Thatcher's playbook and prescribed voice lessons as a remedy.

I read somewhere that before the "news conference" performance, the Prez asked for ten minutes to be alone to prepare himself. At the time, I had visions of him communing with the Almighty, and asking His (Her?) blessings on his upcoming venture in manipulating public opinion.

Well, I still think it's entirely possible he did that. But maybe a few of those ten minutes were given over to the kind of breathing exercizes and other warmups that a voice coach would suggest.

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