If I had a criticism of the address it would be that, if anything, it was overly pessimistic. Hearing the first paragraphs you would think our cities lie in ruins and our countrymen consume rats for sustenance.

Yes, that's the "change" part.

Good. I'm glad all the pols and the press got a good hard look at all those people who have PBO's back. I want a change of tone from these idiots and the only way to get it to show them who is really boss. The Village and its transcriptionists have had it their way much too long and look where it's gotten us. We wanted our country back and, I hope, we have it. Let's hope we do a better job than they have.

"The speech was good. Not great. But then, it couldn't be a great speech because this is not the time for great speeches. Obama has already extracted what benefit he can from pre-presidential oratory. He has made his points. This is the time for governing, and he knew it, and we knew it, and the speech -- as opposed to the swearing-in -- had a vaguely perfunctory appeal."

So did FDR make a mistake in 1933 by giving a great speech? Should he have just made a good speech without a single line that anyone would remember 24 hours later (like this one) and gotten down to governing? Or what about Reagan in 1981? He had made his points... it was time to govern... yet he still found time to give quite a memorable speech.

Hearing the first paragraphs you would think our cities lie in ruins and our countrymen consume rats for sustenance.

You gotta be kidding me. After months of hearing about how this is The Worst Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression, a little pessimism sounds in order.

[W]hat about Reagan in 1981? ... he still found time to give quite a memorable speech.

Mmmmm . . . nope. Can't remember a bit of it. Wait! Wasn't there a line about . . . no, that wasn't his. Damn!

I thought the speech was moving. All this business about "great" vs. "good" is bunk. It didn't deliver the singular soundbite, in the way that FDR's did, but as a whole I though it was great. To me, the invocation of Washington was particularly poignant.

I thought the speech was lacking only in delivery (he finally felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, I think), but it certainly was great! From a content perspective it was arguably his best yet.

Can you imagine the, for lack of a better term, sh*t he would have gotten had he made a speech that encouraged the crowd to chant, "Obama, Obama, Obama" or "Yes we can! Yes we can!"?

This was not the place for such a speech. The type of speech that was required and the type of speech that he gave spoke directly to ALL American people. It was not about him, his story or any of that. This was a speech that sounded very PRESIDENTIAL.

"But then, it couldn't be a great speech because this is not the time for great speeches."
That is fing ridiculous from Ezra of Irvine. Like Obama can't do both? Roosevelt and Churchill seemed capable of speechifying and governing.

"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

The only memorable line from Reagan's first inaugural address and only because it has been repeated daily by the Norquists of the world.

I thank the speech is wonderful

The speech was good. Not great

Favreau must have lost his cardboard cutout doll; can't write w/o it.

Before the speech, I turned to a colleague and said "here comes Obama's 'blood, toil, sweat, and tears' speech." I was wrong--it was much more than that.

Key to me was that he rejected three important precepts:

1. The trickle-down economics of Reagan. Simply put, he re-defined "real Americans" as people who work for a living, and the said the economy has to work for them or it doesn't work. The Nixon/Reagan national application of the old unionbusting trick of divide and conquer, breaking up a middle class/working class consensus by turning ethnicities and other groups against each other was really undone. Here, I think his argument was immensely strengthened by the fact that Bill Clinton had said it all before, and by the evidence his own victory provided that the American people have changed from 1980, and we simply no longer believe only white people can have "real" American values. (and I loved that Obama is stealing back 'heritage' from the haters).

2. Obama rejected the "big government/small government" argument. It's always been a red herring, just the way states' rights arguments always were. He labeled it as such, and put it aside. So now, anyone who argues about the size of government is, by definition, wasting time with an ideological process argument. A rigid insistence on ideological purity is now the right's achilles' heel, not the left's. They want to stop change, they need to prove an alternative will work, not just point to their position's consistency with a "smaller is always better" theory. This is an immensely powerful thing. It puts the Right on the defensive, depriving them of their strongest tool of obstruction.

3. Rejected neoconservatism and Bush's entire foreign policy. Also, crafted a muscular liberal foreign policy. Here's where his appropriation of rhetoric was most effective. He used the strong language of the right to argue for the policy proscriptions of the left.

Big, big, big speech. A governing speech, that clearly sets him up to implement the agenda we elected him to do.

So now is not the time for great speeches, but it is the time for unbelievably expensive inaugural festivities. Oh-kay.

Time to fire Favreau. "raging storms, gathering stormclouds". The guy writes like a highschool senior. Enough Obama sympathizers were critical of this speech that Obama himself must have some doubts about Favreau. Time for job seekers in this area to step up to the plate and try to get their handiwork seen by the Leader.

Before the speech, I turned to a colleague and said "here comes Obama's 'blood, toil, sweat, and tears' speech." I was wrong--it was much more than that.

That is ridiculous. I hope you are getting paid to shill.

Enough Obama sympathizers were critical of this speech that Obama himself must have some doubts about Favreau. Time for job seekers in this area to step up to the plate and try to get their handiwork seen by the Leader.

And as has been seen prior, no vetting necessary for this position!

But really, what would explain such a pedestrian, third rate piece of writing on the greatest occasion in the life of this presumably gifted man??? The stream of cliches was quite something. "we will not end our journey..." what the hell does that mean? How would we end it? It suffered from shaplessness, as well. It did not have a thread that one could follow through, a beginning, a middle, and a climax. Other flaws in the inauguration were: the huge disappointment of such a large number of ticket holders; the ridiculous poem, which must have passed someone's scrutiny; the hat worn by Aretha Franklin; the gratuitous insult rev. Lowery laid on whites (when white does what's right); the bungled oath; the mocking of Bush; Bill Clinton with his mouth agape practically drooling like a person in mid-stage dementia. This was a very very imperfect inauguration, and does not bode well for the complete reconstruction and reconfiguration of the nation, as aimed at by the new president and his team.

The Austerity of Hope?

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what it cannot do, for that list is much shorter."

He talked about the world outside the lower 48 like it mattered, not just for Americans but for the people that actually live there. That's where the speech stood out and that, as much as his skin color distinguishes, Obama from previous presidents.