Ike knew this.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

There's a certain kind of acting you often (but not exclusively) see in students too smart for their own good - they know how the words should sound, they know where the gestures go, but they're empty. That's what you see here.