The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Flat Obama

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I'm sure I'll be dissenting from most people (and perhaps it was different on TV), but I thought the speech was a bit flat. To be sure, it wasn't terrible. But it was solid and workmanlike whereas the gravity of the moment and all the buildup suggested he'd offer something more. The idea that we're facing tremendous challenges and can overcome them if we work together is nothing new, and it wasn't a theme that was presented with particular creativity this time around. This wasn't Lincoln's Second Inaugural in 1864, or FDR in 1933, or JFK in 1961, or Reagan in 1980. It was just another run-of-the-mill inauguration speech. Perhaps Obama was worried about overreaching and this was intentional. But either way, it doesn't really matter anymore. Obama doesn't have President Bush to kick around and now he's going to have to start making decisions and take responsibility for them. "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply," Obama said. "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works..." The American people will be the judge of that soon enough.

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Jeremiah| 1.20.09 @ 5:24PM

Mr Klein --

It doesn't seem to have occured to you that Obama may deliberately have toned down the rhetoric for the simple reason that the major problems the country faces require rati0nality, sobriety, thoughtfulness, and even-handedness.

Depend upon it. Had Obama wished to rouse the crowd with repeated applause lines, he could have. Obama is a consummate orator. I think today's address signalled a desire to return this country's government to a discourse of reason and reasonability.

Enough with the emtionalism and phony ideological ranting -- from both sides.

ruth| 1.20.09 @ 5:35PM

Tell that to the liberal morons who booed Bush at the dais, Jeremiah. I bet you don't have the stones to confront your fellow liberal tools.

Real American| 1.20.09 @ 6:31PM

Or maybe President Hussein just isn't as good as advertised. Of course, we'd never know it due to the sycophant media that refuses to tell the truth about this racist, America-hating Marxist.

Alan Brooks| 1.20.09 @ 7:05PM

what about the emotionalism of the First Lady,
"oh how are our souls are broken" sob sob.

Alan Brooks| 1.20.09 @ 7:06PM

the poor little thing. sniff.

E.E.Cooper| 1.20.09 @ 11:02PM

Did the "solid and workmanlike" speech have a missing brick? The self-evident truths in The Declaration of Independence are "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". The 1/20/2009 Inaugural Address of President Barack Obama selectively paraphrases, asking us "to carry forward, that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: The God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." Today's speech got the created equal part, got two out of three unalienable rights --liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But wasn't "that precious gift, that noble idea", a triple? Didn't it used to be "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? Skipped right over life, as in "right to life"? Skipped accidentally on purpose, perhaps? Could that conspicuous omission have anything to do with President Obama's soon to be advanced domestic and international abortion policy?

ruth| 1.20.09 @ 11:26PM

On purpose, EEC. The man is an advocate of infanticide. I'll never know how a man, a father, can sweetly reach over and kiss his beautiful daughters' faces and also be an advocate for the slaughter of innocents. I'll never know. It makes me contemptuous of him.