Barack Obama blows nose and receives standing ovation from adoring crowdI had computer problems today (Wednesday), so I'll wait until tomorrow to end my discussion of Obama's mediocre Inaugural Address. He had suggested we were going to get a "new Lincoln," but instead all we got was a used Hyundai. Barack Obama may be from Illinois, but he's no Lincoln.
Obama has a great voice -- not James Earl Jones, but good nevertheless. He's very effective with his pregnant pauses. Unlike, say, John McCain, he doesn't read a speech as if he's running a race. He's slick; he's smooth; and, with his somewhat emaciated form, he looks good on TV.
But that eminently forgettable Address! President Bush's former speechwriter, called it a "rhetorical failure." It lacked the verbal magic of a Lincoln or an FDR. If there was an one truly powerful line in it (something like Kennedy's "Ask not . . .") no one has pointed it out yet.
Abraham Lincoln talked about "the mystic chords of memory." In Obama's speeches, there's no mystery -- no chords that resonate after the deep baritone voice fades into blissful silence. What remains generally are a handful of abstractions, mostly about "hope" and "change."
What Obama should change is his speechwriter. High school students presumably still memorize Lincoln's Gettysburg Address -- as they should. However, anyone who memorizes one of Obama's speeches should receive hazardous duty pay.
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