Reporters who have spent years covering political speeches have learned that to do their job efficiently, they must write like the wind and wait for a rereading to make sense of what was being said by the person on the other side of the podium. You can usually tell the age of a reporter by how fast he writes, particularly when covering a political oration that is traditionally long on style and extremely short on content.

The beginning reporter who tries to make sense of every note made during an oratorical blowout generally will miss the really good parts, which include any stories the politician might have culled from the hundreds he has heard during his career and the speaker's approach to the flag, apple pie and his mother who allegedly gave him the inspiration to "enter public life" and devote his remaining years to "a lifetime of service to the citizens of this great state" (or nation, if the speaker is a candidate for federal office). Incidentally, if the audience is at least 50 percent female, it will be this same mother who baked the apple pie and inspired the speaker to save his pennies to buy his first American flag.

Just the other day I covered two political speeches that were delivered at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, whose members were treated to a long litany of tired political bromides that have been used since the beginning of American politics. The first speaker was the ranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives and the second was the third ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate. Both have been in politics long enough to speak for years without advancing a single insightful thought, yet despite their well-deserved reputations, I had hoped that both men would provide their audience with a modicum amount of information and insight into their activities in the U.S. Congress.

I was wrong.

The first speaker, the Democratic congressman, spoke only a few hours following the bombing at the Olympic Games in Atlanta. His observation of the event, which I pass along as prologue to the disappointing dialogue that followed, included this bit of wisdom: "Terrorism is in our midst."

After reading my rapidly written notes, here are some additional pithy comments from the gentleman who heads the opposition party in the U.S. House:

---"We will fight terrorism until we end it once and for all."

---"By working together we can solve our problems."

---"We need a dialogue between federal and state and local officials."

-"We (Congress) need to listen to your expertise." -"The challenge we face is to preserve democracy."

---"We must renew the grand and glorious (American) spirit."

The third-ranking Republican senator was just as adept as the Democrat in convincing his audience that he had come all the way to St. Louis to say absolutely nothing of substance.

In bipartisan tradition, here are some of his bromidic gems:

---"We must restore faith in our American economic system."

---"We are all citizens of this great country."

---"Our federal government must be less burdensome."

---"We've got to balance our budget."

---"This is an effort to get some cooks out of the kitchen." (He never identified the effort.)

---"As we meet today, I'm hopeful we will all think about these problems."

---"Our challenge is to assure the continuation of our American dream."

---"State and federal governments must work together."

Well, you get the idea. The more I listened to these two speakers, the more I hoped they represented a tardy April Fool's joke members of Congress were playing on their state counterparts. Both speakers uttered many of the bromides, pat phrases and tired dialogue that all of us have had to endure over our lifetimes. I wanted someone to run up to the microphone and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a filming of Candid Camera." No one did. The audience applauded politely at the end of the program, the speakers smiled, shook hands and flew back to Washington to resume their work, whatever it is.

One of the speakers dramatically admitted, "Washington doesn't have all the answers." Congressman, it doesn't even know the questions.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.