The July/August issue of the Washington Monthly that I mentioned in my last post also includes an interesting commentary by editor and former Clinton speechwriter, Paul Glastris.

According to Mr. Glastris, President Clinton once scrawled the comment, “WORDS, WORDS, WORDS” next to a paragraph of lofty language drafted by one of his speechwriters.

Mr. Clinton certainly knew how to hurt a guy. In case you didn’t notice, his comment was a quote from Hamlet. In Act II, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet (who is feigning madness) enters reading a book. Polonius, the busybody lord chamberlain, bustles up to him and asks him what he’s reading. Hamlet replies mockingly, “Words, words, words.”

So, by his comment, Mr. Clinton was not merely saying, “This is bombast,” or, “This is overly rhetorical.” Instead, he’s responding much as playwright Ben Hecht responded to a negative review that was written in a particularly florid style. Hecht’s marginal note read, “Shelley’s loose again.”

Mr. Clinton was known to dislike high-flown language. Supposedly, he told one of his speechwriters, “I don’t want to speak to people; I want to talk to them.”

Now, on the surface at least, that sounds sensible –- even admirable.

The president wanted to “talk” to people –- to give it to them straight, in plain language, free from any artifice or rhetorical devices.

Yes, it sounds good –- on the surface. But is this really what we want from our leaders? If it’s “talk” you want, you can get that at the barber shop.

Imagine Lincoln beginning the Gettysburg Address by saying, “Eighty-seven years ago, a bunch of really cool dudes got together to make a country.”

Instead, Lincoln began the Gettysburg address with, “Fourscore and seven years ago …” He used an expression that was archaic even in 1863. In other words, he used rhetoric –- and so did Mr. Clinton, despite his protestations to the contrary.

Here is Mr. Clinton in November of 1995, in a televised address to the nation, explaining why the U.S. was going to send ground troops to Bosnia to enforce peace in that province:

For nearly four years a terrible war has torn Bosnia apart. Horrors we prayed had been banished from Europe forever have been seared into our minds again. Skeletal prisoners caged behind barbed wire fences, women and girls raped as a tool of war, defenseless men and boys shot down into mass graves, evoking visions of World War II concentration camps and endless lines of refugees marching toward a future of despair.

How many of your friends “talk” to you like that?

I’m not knocking Mr. Clinton. I personally regard that as one of the best speeches his presidency.

But was he “talking” to the nation at that moment, or was he “speaking”?

In fact, is there ever an occasion that requires a speech when you can get by with just “talking”?

Mr. Clinton thought so, but his use of rhetoric, at least in his major addresses, belies him.

His speechwriters knew better. According to Paul Glastris, the dirty little secret of the Clinton speechwriters was how much they cribbed from Ronald Reagan –- “because he and his speechwriters were the modern masters of the form.”

“Talk” to people, indeed!