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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-01-19

Barone On Second Inaugurals

Michael Barone, in my opinion the best out there at seeing the political "big picture", has written a piece in the OpinionJournal reviewing past second inaugural speeches, and putting some in some context his expectations for tomorrow's speech by the President.

My favorite excerpt, from both a literary standpoint and because he is (in my humble opinion) the greatest President in history, is from Abraham Lincoln: "With malice towards none, and charity to all. . ." But I was surprised and pleased to hear the tone of another famously "dumb" President, Eisenhower: "Our world is where our destiny lies--with men, of all people, and all nations, who are or would be free."

This is the tone I expect the President to take tomorrow--a grand, eloquent, and sweeping defense of the Bush Doctrine. He will, of course, spend some time on the domestic stuff, especially social security, but in the end all of his domestics will lead towards the "Grand Theme": Freedom. Freedom here. Freedom abroad.

By the way, I wonder if there's any way he could manage to challenge George Washington's speech for brevity: 135 words. Ms. Kinsey always said say what you need to in as few words as it takes.

Posted by: Michael / 1/19/2005 04:56:00 PM

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