President Obama has delivered an inspiring and soaring inauguaral address to the people of the nation. Not since Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy have we had a commander in chief with similar gifts to deliver a speech and inspire a crowd.
Indeed as I watched his remarks I was reminded of both Reagan in 1981 and Kennedy in 1961 with regard to language and theme.
For example when Obama spoke of the current situation he said
Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land, a nagging fear than America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America.. they will be met.
This segment was very similar to Ronald Reagan in 1981 when he also told us that we faced great burdens that would take time to solve but that we would meet the challenges because ‘after all we are Americans’.
Obama also echoed Kennedy and Reagan when he looked to the past and discussed the sacrifices our ancestors made for us.
For us, they packed up their few worldly posessions and travelled across the oceans in search of a new life, for us they toiled in sweatshops and settled the west; endured the last of the whip and plowed the hard earth, for us they fought and died in places like Concord, Gettysburg, Normandy and Khe Sahn.
His call for us to work with nations around the world and for those nations to work with us matched Kennedy well, as did his warning that to work with us they would need to put down their arms and work for freedom.
Clearly there was not a great deal of substance, nor would you expect there to be. The Inaugural is supposed to be a speech to inspire and to lay out themes, specifics come in to play during the State of The Union and other remarks.
And it is in this area that I did find one thing lacking in his address. If you look at the most memorable addresses (FDR 1933, Kennedy 1961, Reagan 1981) you find that there was a single line or two from the speech that became part of history and pulled together the theme of the speech. Lines like ‘Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself’ or ‘Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You’ or ‘Government Is Not The Solution, Government Is The Problem’ have become part of the political landscape.
Yet Obama did not have any lines close to these. While his speech was inspiring and brought the crowd to their feet, I am not sure that most of us will remember much from it in a few days or weeks. Perhaps that was a deliberate choice but given that he captured his campaign with ‘Yes We Can’ I find it surprising that we did not have a similar line this time.
But it was a good speech and served its purpose.
Well done, Mr. President.