Live Blogging Obama's Inaugural Address
One thing to learn from that speech - Obama is adjusting to his new role. He has learned that he must delegate even his own writing, which cannot have been easy. I feel sure that speech was not the personal work of this highly eloquent man. It takes a team of highly trained professionals to produce something quite so flat!
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Obama aides have been signaling that the speech would be familiar. That was understood to mean that it would echo Obama's own past words. Instead, it's familiar because it seems to evoke every oft-expressed thought and repeat so many well-worn phrases. If you have prosaic things to say, better to follow Ronald Reagan's example in 1981 and use the language of prose. This is a stumble, an over-reach that wishes to be remembered as bigger and better than it was.
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That passage on terrorism seemed somehow ... weak. Our spirit is stronger than that of the terrorists? That's what's going to "defeat" them? Not much energy in that declaration, not nearly so much as his promise of assistance to poor nations.
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A friend to each nation? Unconditionally? What is the United States to be under President Obama? Barney the Purple Dinosaur?
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The regulatory promise: After disavowing interest in the question of whether government is too big or too small, these lines must represent the most unabashed defense of an expanded role for the state since ... I cant think when. 1965 maybe?
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First Obama promises new respect for science in national decisionmaking. Then he promises to shift to sun, wind, and soil as energy sources. I guess it's scientifically possible, but hardly rational. No nukes?
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Khe Sanh - Vietnam integrated into the American story at last. Nice. But otherwise, too much reaching for rhetorical effect for my taste with too little content behind it.
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War first – economy second – on the list of national concerns. Climate change in the main body of the speech, unprecedented. But what’s this? Not a malaise speech?
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As Obama repeatedly stumbled over the words of the oath of office, we received the answer to a question my wife & I were debating last night. Does this seemingly supremely confident man feel any jitters today? Answer: yes, sure seems that way.
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Four minutes behind schedule for the oath of office. Does this mean that Obama enjoys four minutes as president unencumbered by the obligation to uphold the Constitution?
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The new president's children look bored with the clarinet & cello interlude. Cant say I blame them. What is this? Atonal theme and variations upon 1980s pop tunes?
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Aretha Franklin? So much for Andrew Sullivan's theory that this is the first post-baby boomer presidency ...
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I don't know if anybody else appreciated the use of Jesus' Hebrew name by Rick Warren, but I liked it.
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I've lived in Washington through four inaugurations now: 1996, 2000, 2004, and now this. I witnessed two others as a visitor to this city: 1980 and 1988. Perhaps 1992 was different, but I have never seen an inauguration that so excited the city as the one has done. Never such a crowd, never such enthusiasm in the streets. I broke my own rule last night and ventured downtown for an inaugural party. Washington was impassable - frigid - and frenzied. As my wife and I sat entrapped in traffic on Capitol Hill, we spotted little cushions in the windows of the townhouses as the homeowners prepared to watch the next day's parades. A true moment in history.