Over the past couple of weeks, President Barack Obama and members of Congress have gone out of their way to show that they are engaged in conversations about the future direction of the country. Indeed, Obama’s “charm offensive” has raised eyebrows all over Washington. So what does one of the world’s foremost experts on conversation, who happens to teach at Georgetown University, think of all this talk? “They really are not trying to govern. They see the opposition party as the enemy and look for every opportunity to destroy it,” said Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown and the author of best-selling books such as “That’s Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships” and “The Argument Culture: Stopping America’s War of Words.” (more…)
