You were fine. It's the very thing I do when people drop by and I'm horrified at how filthy our house is, and I assume everyone else sees it to, only to find out they were more interested in the conversation we were having than the state of my house. Put simply, we're a far worse critic of ourselves than others.

P.S. You are smarmy, but that's why we like you.

I think you could give Andy Rooney a run for his money...want a job with CBS? :)

No, Susan, Andy's got at least 25 good years left. I'm going to rename my show, "Smarmy Time, With David Murray."

I like "Get Smarmy with David Murray."

That's right, David, embrace your strengths! Sure, you're a great writer. But everyone says they're a great writer. To bill yourself as a "smarmy writer" will really help you establish a niche on YouTube. Who knows, before long maybe the kids will start using "smarmy" as the new "bad" or "phat" to mean you're really cool. "Yo, bro, that is smarmy."

If I take my smarmy ass viral, I won't forget the little people, I promise.

I watched both; smarminess aside, I can never separate speech writing and speech presentation. Everyone's heard a speech by a great presenter given in a language the listener doesn't even understand and found it rousing (and perhaps been horrified at what sounded so good when someone translated); everyone's heard great rhetoric in their own language delivered flatly by a non-speaker. MLK could deliver great words in an inspired way. That's why I think he's so memorable. This lot -- feh. Most of them seem to lack ONE IDEA (other than the ambiguous and omnipresent "change") to hang their hats on, which means they don't have anything to say. MLK had a DREAM -- and could articulate it and make it visual and tangible. He could make it OUR dream. What have we got here? "You gave me a voice." Who cares?

As for all the cheering, people will cheer at pauses like dogs will drool at whistles.

You may want to be careful billing yourself as "smarmy" - you could be immediately inundated by presidential candidates wanting to hire you, and where would that leave your...now what did you call us...oh yes, "wonderful bunch of freaks" for our daily conversation fix???

That was pretty interesting, David. I've hired a speech coach for every candidate I've ever worked with (at least, for every one who would listen to me and GET speech coaching), so I'm familiar with how a good speech coach gets you to recognize your own particular twitches in both body and language. When you began your video, to be honest, you were making ME twitchy--and then you started speaking about what you care about. And you became animated, amusing, incisive--everything about your presentation changed, and I started to see in your person the fascinating mind I'm exposed to here in the written word.

So passion and conviction seem to be, as others have touched on today, key and core to effective speech presentation. I didn't see smarminess; I saw initial discomfort that lessened throughout the video as you moved into what you know and care about.

I'm with Justin--keep dragging your "smarmy" ass in front of that lens until you stop worrying about the unblinking glass eyeball and focus, from word one, on what you know and care about. Now that I've FINALLY convinced the powers that be that it's important to my work to be able to view myragantv here at work, you can bet that I'll be watching for you!

Joan, you've put your finger on it! I suck at formalities and small-talk, I'm solid only when I'm bellowing or otherwise dissecting. The trouble is, in public speaking and in videos, one must cleverly work one's way into a passionate discussion. I'm good once I'm there ... just not too graceful at getting there.

But working on it ....

(Congratulations on talking the powers into the obvious; it's harder than it looks sometimes!)

But can you really wear the smarmy mantle if hasn't been bestowed on you by Bill Sweetland?

"The Smarmy Frat Boy"

No. You are and always will be The Smarmy Frat Boy, Craig. No one will ever take that away from you.

I want to thank David Murray, and his family and friends, and the entire Ragan organization, and the thousands of logged on, tuned in, signed on myragan.com supporters for this true breakthrough in online commentary.

Finally, smarm has a human face. It is the face of change. The face of history. The shining face of a new dawn in web-based punditry.

It is, as we had all hoped and prayed, the face of a new kind of freedom. A kind of freedom that is spreading across this great land....

BUT SERIOUSLY, CONGRATS, DAVID! Despite your own sense of embarrassment over this, you are a natural. I have never seen any TV personality who, on his or her first times in front of the camera, didn't look uncomfortable in some way. And we, as viewers, project our own discomfort on the unfamiliar presence on the screen. This, I know, will fade quickly, and the underlying concept of you commenting on public speakers is a killer.

Keep going with it and you'll soon be invited onto the cable news networks to do the same thing.

Ron, with friends like you, who needs platitudipusses?

(Thanks, pal.)