Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Thoughts on the Big Speech

As you can imagine, I enjoyed Obama's inaugural speech.

But I found the media's reaction to the speech a bit odd. The talking heads instantly started comparing the speech to past ones, and to many of their tiny little minds it didn't compare to Lincoln's second inaugural or Jefferson's first (my favorite).

People seem to be disappointed that his speech wasn't as good as Lincoln or Jefferson's. That's a tough challenge. Good luck with that.

In a world of sound bytes, many weren't happy that there wasn't one snippet that could be beaten into our heads such as "The only thing to fear is fear itself," "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," or "Does this suit make me look fat?" (Taft). 

Regardless, although I'm no political "scientist," I can't remember an inaugural address that invokes the crossing of the Delaware. Interesting metaphor for where are country is right now.

And I really enjoyed that President Obama took on either-or thinking. Part of the speech was a stinging indictment of the past eight years and how we need to move the country in a much better direction.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was disappointed by the speech, but the jabs at the previous adminstration were bold.

And it appears that John Roberts is as bright as the man that appointed him.