Official Inauguration Day Thread

[djnemo65]

Originally Posted by saden1

Anyone else disappointed by Obama's speech? I thought it was uninspiring and said nothing we haven't heard before.

The expectations were pretty absurd. While no one knew exactly what they wanted to hear, they wanted to hear it and then immediately proclaim "That's even better than the Gettysburg Address."

As someone from Gettysburg, I can tell you that the people who heard the original (and there weren't many, a lot less than two million or whatever) didn't immediately turn to each other and proclaim, "we've just witnessed the greatest speech in American History!" I guess my point being we need some time for perspective.

I thought Obama's speech was solid, appropriately cognizant of the difficulty the country is facing, with just enough uplift to leave us not feeling hopeless.

I think if Obama goes onto be a great president, we'll go back and cherry pick lines from yesterday's speech and act like it was great and timeless all along. If he is mediocre, well, then his speech will fade into the ether like those of most of the presidents who came before him.