President Barack Obama
The soundtrack to the movie Gettysburg is resonating from my speakers. I’m in a patriotic mood. And why not? Today, the United States underwent another peaceful transfer of power. There was no attempted coup, no guns were needed to pry the former leader from his desk. A little after noon, former President Bush stood near President Obama as he recited the oath of office. And that was that. A Democrat simply replaced a Republican.
Millions watched from the national mall while millions of others viewed it from their television screens. Despite our current economic troubles the republic is strong. Strong enough to endure a never ending Presidential campaign as well as years of political bitterness. No matter who you voted for you should be proud Americans are a people who let elections and the rule of law govern us.
I disagree with President Obama on a great many things, but he is still my President. He deserves the honor and respect of the office millions of people worked so hard to place him in. When he does the right thing I will support him, but when he tries to take the nation down the wrong path I will work hard to convince him, his party, and the American people they are wrong. That’s how I best feel I can serve my political beliefs and my country.
Here’s some reaction to President Obama’s inaugural speech:
- White House Writers Group’s Ed Walsh:
It will be remembered, probably not as one of the best, but certainly as one of the most consequential. Everyone will take their own piece of it with them.
- The American Spectator’s James Antle:
The delivery was good. The substance was classic Obama: Respectful of tradition and conservative ideas, but in the end unfailingly liberal in its premises.
- Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff:
The speech was classic Obama — the kind of fine-sounding, frivolous fare in which the idea that we face specific trade-offs is dismissed as cynicism, even as we’re told in the most general way of the need for sacrifice. The debates in which serious people on both sides the political spectrum have engaged for decades were dismissed as “childish,” as if there exists some magic but unstated synthesis that everyone up until now has missed. Yet we were told that we face tough choices.
- National Review’s Jay Nordlinger echoes my thoughts:
Obama did not give a bad speech — although I think there were bad, even disgraceful, lines in it. But I don’t think he gave a particularly good speech. I admired its brevity, however. And I hope his presidency continues better than it began. Time to stop knocking (and sliming) Bush and do something on his own.
It can’t hold a candle to Reagan’s 1981 speech.