I thought that our new President’s inaugural address was magnificent, and said so in my post yesterday.
Of course, as many will point out, I am biased. And, of course, there are many other unbiased bloggers and pundits just rearing to point out how horrible, how “wretched” the speech was—the worst inaugural address in U.S. history.
And, of course, having called the outgoing president “one of the worst presidents in U.S. history,” I cant not call the kettle black.
But I can make some observations.
One of these bloggers who found the inaugural speech actually worse than that “other wretched speech” (referring to Barack Obama’s famous March 28, 2008, Philadelphia speech), wasn’t “going to waste much time on it” except to ridicule and deride several passages of Barack Obama’s speech. For example:
“We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.” I dunno, looks from here more like discordant Americans just took counsel of their fears, and put a “hope” blanket over their majority head.
An “end to petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.” Unless he just fired Congress and resigned, then petty grievances, false promises and worn-out dogmas remain the order of the day. Jury’s still out on the recriminations.
The question immediately arises: Where were these bloggers and pundits when ex-president George W. Bush made such excellent remarks as (Courtesy of About.com:Political Humor ):
“Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.” —discussing the Iraq war with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, as quoted by Robertson
“My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we’re going to run out of debt to retire.” —radio address, Feb. 24, 2001
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” —State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003, making a claim that administration officials knew at the time to be false .
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” —speaking underneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, May 1, 2003
“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories … And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.” —Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003
And, of course, “We don’t torture.”
Sorry, I forgot, we must let bygones be bygones and move on—to ridicule our new President. Is this a great country or what? And, I do mean that about America: my right to criticize even a President, and others’ right to also criticize a President—and me.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.