A Young Nation Rises Again

In many respects this was a deeply traditional inauguration speech. It didn’t reach the heights of Obama’s “Jeremiah Wright” speech in Philadelphia, but it didn’t need to and was, in any case, an address given to a very different kind of occasion. The Wright speech was interesting, not merely because of how Obama addressed the controversy, but because of what it told us about how he thinks. This, by contrast, was a grander, more formal affair. Less personal and so less interesting.

But it didn’t need to be a perfect speech. Nor did it matter much that it wasn’t. It did more than enough to get the job done; what mattered was the identity of the man delivering the address.
 
Almost all American elections are fought upon the premise that there’s something rotten in Washington and that the country needs the adrenaline of change to move forward towards its ever-more perfect union.