by Phoebe Odingo

Created on: November 15, 2008   Last Updated: December 16, 2008

Communication is described as the process of transferring signals, messages between a sender and receiver through various methods (written words, non verbal cues, spoken words). It is said that you should not only be able to speak effectively, one must listen to the other person's words and engage in communication on what the other person is speaking about. One is to avoid the impulse to to listen only for the end of the sentence so you can blurt out ideas. Good communicators seem to have a very good grasp of this basic principles. Those who are challenged like Sarah Palin however, have a difficult time relaying their ideas coherently. If you ask me she falls in the category of poor communicators.

Sarah Palin's a definite gaffe machine. On the other hand, she seems to be able to comminicate very well with a certain segment of the American population. These happen to be people who are themselves not very good at listening to others. When watching her interviews, one gets a sense that she is not particularly astute at conveying her thoughts. Get her in front of a less intellectual crowd, and she wows at every juncture. To those who are attuned to good communication, she comes off as shallow and a person who does not think on her feet.

This is important because an effective communicator has to possess such a skill. It's not so much how quickly you answer the questions as Obama has demonstrated. Gifted communicatiors also listen carefully. Sarah Palin constantly takes pride in not listening to questions posed to her or chooses to answer them in her own fashion. Remember how she blatantly refuse to answer the questions posed to her, probably because she could not blurt out the talking points she had memorized. The result is a total disconnect that creates nothing but gaffe after gaffe.

If you are daring enough and want to get the unfiltered, unbiased and realistic view of Sarah Palin's oratory skills, Keith Olberman of MSNBC is your man for the job. Spare me the sexist calims that are tossed around when any criticism is levelled at Sarah Palin. Little girls in Coed schools don't have the luxury of claiming that because of their gender, less intelligence should be accepted from them. Thus when Keith points out what can only be characterized as gaffe after gaffe, I beg... notice how much restraint he applies. As a layman, I would say much worse.

Good communication is not necessarily using one bombastic word after the other. I however have an expectation of coherence in

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