Why a speech shouldn’t be about three things

On my trip to Washington last week, I had the extreme pleasure of ham-and-egging it with speechwriting schoolmaster Mike Long.

In explaining to his Georgetown class why it’s important for every speech to hammer home a single central idea, I asked the students to imagine coming away from the speech and being asked what it was about.

“Well,” you’d answer. “The speech was about three things ….”

No, you wouldn’t.

(Teaching is fun!) —DM