That speech

It was soaring and inspirational, but is grand rhetoric enough?

President Barack Hussein Obama’s inaugural speech was awaited as eagerly as the final episode in

The American passion for memorable political speeches is so strong that it has become an arcane art form, a genre of writing somewhere between a sermon and a poem. Lincoln was its master and every president after him carries the burden of trying to equal his rhetoric for a later generation. He is expected to forge words and phrases which will echo down through the years. So Mr Obama and his speechwriters found themselves going head to head with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, whose speeches were probably the best of the last century.

This was an enormous challenge. This first inaugural speech was not only supposed to set an agenda and inspire the American people. It was also supposed to create new proverbs for the language. FDR did it with “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” and JFK did it with “Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.”

How about BHO?

Well, despite Mr Obama’s well-deserved reputation for soaring and inspirational speeches, his first inaugural speech fell short of the commanding heights of his predecessors. It was delivered in his sonorous baritone, beautifully modulated, and perfectly timed. But there was no knock-out punch, no spine-tingling moment, no phrase to carve on future monuments.

In fact, it was, dare I say it, a bit cliched. The online magazine Slate even marshalled its readers to write a speech for him which pressed many of the buttons as the new President pressed in his address. Still, it achieved its purpose. It inspired listeners to realise that they are participants in the great traditions of the United States of America. That was no mean feat. For a few giddy moments Obama's first inaugural raised them above the awful state of the economy, the war on terror and America’s dilapidated reputation abroad. Its soothing words were therapy for a wounded nation. As the President said,

“To match the magnitude of our tasks, we need the energies of our people — enlisted not only in grand enterprises, but more importantly in those small, splendid efforts that make headlines in the neighborhood newspaper instead of the national journal. With these, we can build a great cathedral of the spirit — each of us raising it one stone at a time, as he reaches out to his neighbor, helping, caring, doing.”

Well, sorry, actually Obama didn’t say that. Richard Milhous Nixon did, in 1969. But it could have been Barack Hussein Obama. Both men were talking about political discord and mighty challenges in Biblical cadences. The words were different; the music was the same.

And in fact, like Nixon's, the speech contained no proposals, no policies, no solutions, just exhortations and affirmations. The economic situation America faces today is much the same as the one it faced when FDR took office in the depths of the Great Depression. But FDR was blunt about what he intended to do. He inveighed against “unscrupulous money changers” and actually threatened Congress with governing by executive power if he failed to get his way. Obama was vague and non-specific. His slogan “Yes We Can” is as enigmatic as ever.

So originality is not what we heard today from Mr Obama. No matter. We heard something far more interesting. We heard continuity.

First of all, it was a continuity of rhetoric. The new president eschewed the conversational diction which Ronald Reagan used in his first inaugural. Instead, he fell back on the rhythms of hymns and the parallelisms and simple imagery of Biblical poetry. This is the natural language of American political oratory.

“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.”

Second, it tried to establish, as most inaugural speeches do, a continuity of history. “We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.” Indeed, in addition to echoing Lincoln, Mr Obama reached as far back as General George Washington's address to freezing and disheartened troops during the Revolution before their fortunes turned.

So it's all a bit puzzling. Soothing words, obscure directions, historical continuity. Is this the Change We Can Believe In, or is there something else in the mail?

Michael Cook is Editor of MercatorNet.

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