Obama's Inaugural Address

I loved Obama's acceptance speech. He is such a good speaker and he said some very important things. I liked that there were no real "sound bites" in his speech and, as an ABC correspondent noted, he only said "I" less than a handful of times, instead preferring to reference to the collective "we".

What did you think of his speech today? Did anything stand out to you in particular?

I was impressed with a hard to define sense of his "strength".

The best line was this: "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals . . . those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

I appreciated his mention of "non-believers".

I will, however, hold him fully responsible for the tune that's running through my head now, as a result of ". . . we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." Have we a Fred Astaire fan in the White House?

Looked at objectively, as a piece of rhetoric, I have to say that there were many moments when I expected additional phrases that did not come.
"All this we can do. All this we will do." and "These things are old. These things are true." Twos instead of threes. It felt odd. But then I'm one of those people who's been raised on using trilogies in speech-making!

I loved that it only had a few applause lines. You were actually supposed to listen to it.

And it was short! An excellent thing in Presidents (and all speechifiers).

I thought the safety/ideals line was the best in the speech, too, lilithcat. Almost as good as the look on W.'s face when Obama said it (they panned to Bush immediately after that line). No smiling, there!

#4 - I agree. He never paused, unless forced to, and then kept talking while the applauding was still going on.

On going back to reread the speech I keep seeing more and more to admire about it. I really loved this rousing finale:

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it."

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

I, too, was moved by this finale. I have not heard, for I don't know how long, a genuine reference to history, our history. All the time we get phrases such as "our founding fathers" and "the framers of the constitution" but seldom are we treated to some actual information about what was said or thought in those earlier days.

I appreciated the strength of his speech and the absence of the applause was refreshing.

I'm laughing at the complaints that the speech had no catchphrases or nuggets to quote. Media seem to be pissed that President Obama didn't make it easy for them to make commercials out of his words. One of the talking heads on CNN whined that there was no "We have nothing to fear...." or no "Ask not what your country can do for you..."

It gave me chills. I'm very excited and I'm usually a cynic. Even when voting for Clinton I thought it was a waste of time. I knew Clinton wouldn't really be a GREAT president and that he wasn't entirely in it for the right reasons. Maybe I'm being foolish but I really think Obama is the genuine article. I'm sure he won't be able to do all he wants to do, but I'm also sure that he really means to try. There's still the cynic buried deep in me saying don't be an idiot, but I can't help but hope with Obama.

What I recall right now is that the speech first called for an honest look at the mistakes that have been made that put this country in the situation we are now. The economic problems, our failure of leadership in global affairs and the growing problems in the lives of the majority of our citizens. The President did not say that the government was going to solve these problems overnight. The only way these problems will be solved is through good decisions by the country's leadership and the citizens of the country. Most important I heard that the real solution to present problems and the way to proceed to a better future is to discard our quest for glamor and toys and return to the values of innovation and hard work that helped our country overcome challenges in the past. What I heard from President Obama is that this is a great country with fine people who have taken a wrong turn and suffered the consequences. He told us that the way to overcome our present problems and build a better future for those who come after us is the need to make some difficult decisions based on what is right and do the hard work we are capable of to meet those goals.

It is time to put away childish things.

>12 NeverStopTrying:
I am not turning off my Playstation!

LOL. Thanks.

#11

I heard the same message, but I heard him saying that the government and the people are going to have make hard choices and get to work. That's why I got chills, because for years all I could think is that it's time to stop the stupidity and the slacking and give some things up. I just never thought I'd ever hear a president say it with quite the meaning and force that Obama used. Also, when I say I hope he can accomplish what he's setting out to do, I don't mean to imply that the government will do it all for us. Rather I think the government is going to have to lead and in some cases force (through legislation) us to start and help us stick to the hard choices. We should have developed more renewable energy choices years ago (anyone remember President Carter's call to change?) but we didn't because too few would do it or stick too it without legislation. The government didn't make those hard choices because it would cost the people real money and they were all afraid of that... and so on and so on and so on...

Edit to add: Not only would the gov. not make that choice for fear how the constituents would act, but also because too many of those businesses had really strong lobbyists.

Agreed.

I also heard a strong and I think very timely demand that the partisan bickering be squelched. It is counterproductive, at best, and downright destructive much of the time.

Yeah, the Republican shit machine seems to have taken THAT idea to heart!

#17 - True. :o/

*sigh* I had to laugh a bit sadly yesterday, after Joe Biden made his comments about Chief Justice Roberts memory lapse. All the news agencies had headlines like 'Biden pokes fun at Roberts flub.' All, that is, except for Fox, which read "Biden Takes Shot at Roberts for Flubbing Presidential Oath." The first line of the story read "Vice President Biden took a stab at Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday" and later on Fox used this phrase "The slap was directed at the Supreme Court chief."

SHOT? STAB? SLAP? I'd say there is a bit of an unnecessary negative connotation to those words. I guess Fox didn't get the 'we're all in this shitpile together' message.

Fox News is all upset at the prospect of trying to explain a President who doesn't speak in bumper stickers to their constituents. Not an easy task.

I love that they redid the oath. It's such a wonderful wrinkle!

I love that they redid it without a bible.

Without a bible? He's still not President! ;)

He walks like a President, he talks like a President, he even acts like a President: He is the President. Thank you powers that be or not.

As the preceding 8 years have more than demonstrated, duck logic does not necessarily apply to Presidents, neither forwards nor backwards. But yes. And evidence tentatively suggests he may think like a President. Now THAT'S exciting.

He's the first president we've had in 16 years that doesn't have the 'cocky guy head bop' thing going on! :o)

Nope. He glides.

In four or eight years fashion will have changed. We'll all be enthusing how it's so great to have a bozo in office again.

Back to beer buddies?

As long as that bozo isn't from Alaska.

That would be a bozette.

#30: What, you don't think Ted Stevens could be our next president? ;)

Good one. We'll have to see how he feels when he gets out of stir. Supposing he actually goes.

This is the kind of generational change that JFK represented. This is a fifty year emergence. I think it will be a while before we get the cocky no-nothing beer drinkin' buddy again. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

I just watched the last one and a half episodes of Presidents on The History Channel. When W's info came up one of his characteristics was 'Lacks intellectual curiosity.' I just about fell off my chair.