The Speech
James Forsyth 5:20pm
More than any other modern politician, Barack Obama’s political career has been made and punctuated by his speeches. He became a figure on the national political stage while still a State Senator in Illinois because of his speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. His Jefferson-Jackson speech in Iowa in late 2007 was the moment when it became clear he could take Hillary Clinton on head to head and win. His defiant concession speech after his shock loss in the New Hampshire primary showed that he could take a punch and his speech on race carried him through the Jeremiah Wright scandal. But Obama’s speech in Grant Park after his election as president was surprisingly unmemorable. No words or phrases from it stick in the memory; it was more an exercise in expectations management than anything else.
The inaugural address will be different. Obama will use his first trip to the presidential bully-pulpit to give him even more momentum and the power to push Congress to quickly pass the bills he wants on the books. Obama’s decision to invite parallels to Abraham Lincoln shows that this cautious politician is confident his remarks on Tuesday can stand comparison.
Only three presidents in the twentieth century-- FDR, Kennedy and Reagan—gave truly great inaugural addresses. You can be a good president without giving a good speech as Eisenhower and Truman proved. But it is those who can use the power of words and ideas to move the electorate who tend to reshape how America sees itself as a country. Obama will start on that process on Tuesday.
Please join us for full coverage of Obama's inauguration on Tuesday. We'll have live coverage of the speech and all the festivities.
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Susan Hill
January 18th, 2009 6:31pm Report this commentNo. It isn`t speeches. It`s actions. What he does, what he doesn`t do, how he copes with the overwhelming problems waiting for him. How he doesn`t. Fine words butter no parsnips.
wonderfulforhisage
January 18th, 2009 7:11pm Report this commentI've just been to youtube to listen to his Jefferson-Jackson speech. I wasn't impressed and gave up after "....a war that shouda never been authorised and shouda never been waged."
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment but "shouda never"? Shades of Blair's estuary English methinks. Oh dear.
Let's hope its my misunderstanding of how Americans use our common language.
Augustus
January 18th, 2009 8:51pm Report this commentThis cult of personality is getting a bit far-fetched. The guy is really a naive neophyte with hardly any record of accomplishment. How in the world can anyone compare this man to Lincoln? How can anyone fall for this cult? Perhaps we should all start calling it The United States of Obama?
TrevorsDen
January 18th, 2009 8:56pm Report this commentSpeaking personally I would rather eat my own liver and walk barefoot across broken glass to the recycling depot that listen to another Obama speech.
It might be fun watching various BBC lefties have multiple orgasm's on screen though.
All Kennedy's fine words achieved was nothing except an entry into the Vietnam conflict.
callingallcomets
January 19th, 2009 1:20am Report this commentThe guy is a smooth political operator with a questionable history who nevertheless has managed to emerge from out of the corrupt swamp of Daley's Chicago without any mud staining his well tailored suit mainly because the media - or rather there is plenty of mud but the media and the chattering classes both here and in the US have chosen to ignore it.
The chances are he will become a Blair/Trudeau/Wilson/Carter type figure who will charm a lot of people with his silvery tongue, all promises and spin but whose tenure will leave a mess that will have to be cleared up by someone a little more substantial and a little less charming.
Like any successful confidence trickster Obama (and the clique that spotted his potential)has spotted that we are living in times where the majority want to escape from reality and live in a dream world. Let's hope that by 2016 we will be ready for some cold turkey...
Verity
January 19th, 2009 1:42am Report this commentTrevorsden: "Speaking personally I would rather eat my own liver and walk barefoot across broken glass to the recycling depot that listen to another Obama speech."
So that's a 'no'?
porkbelly
January 19th, 2009 2:33am Report this commentWhen are you lot going back to being journalists?
Frank P
January 19th, 2009 3:14am Report this commentJFK was a lisping lothario and deeply flawed, mainly by the X chromosomes. He swallowed his own rhetoric at times: I never did.
This prick Obama is a robotic shyster who has sold his soul to several bidders, some of whom will soon be after his a-soul when he fails to keep his promises to them. A few billion of the 'bailout' will have to be devoted to his protection. What a fiasco! The West is now completely buggered and who do they call upon to save us, on this side of the Atlantic? Why, the rheumy-eyed fat-gutted, Europhile Ken Clarke, of course. Jesus wept! For Big Beast, read Fat Pig. And what makes anybody think he will extract his snout from the trough to serve his country? Dream on! Haven't any of you Boomer generation reached a stage of maturity to defeat this malodorous administration without calling on has-beens with more baggage than Harrods!
bob
January 19th, 2009 8:51am Report this commentI really don't understand this love affair with Obama.
He seems just as vacuous as one T Blair, apparently not a communist but just like Blair, surrounded by them.
The same stupid elation and lack of any questioning for the new messiah.
Well he's not, he's just another pol. from the most corrupt state in the US.
I said when Blair was elected it would take them ten years to f@çk the country up, at least with Obama he probably can't afford to make things much worse.
TrtevorsDen
January 19th, 2009 9:55am Report this commentI expect the BBC to rename its main TV channel, 'BBC The One' for the day. If fact we are likely to suffer it for the next 4 years.
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