Our Four Bears…

Posted Rick O'Shea

Today is the day…

I’m secretly fascinated. Generally I’m entirely sceptical about everyone and everything involved in politics, so why do I think this guy is any different? I suppose because he talks my talk. Now, of course, he has to walk the walk. If he does, he has the chance to change the world.

C-Span have a series of Presidential inauguration speeches on Youtube.

Jack Kennedy in 1961 is particularly fascinating. So many people today will be comparing the new guy with him and in particular judging today’s inaugural speech against his. Listen though. Great speech maker that he was, this wasn’t one of his best:

It also has FDRs first of four(!) inaugurations in 1933. A stand against the growing tide of fascism and “fear itself”:

Harry Truman’s:

Then there’s Dwight Eisenhower’s in 1953. He the old warhorse who, by the end of his terms would be warning against the “military-industrial complex”:

Lyndon Johnson’s:

Dick Nixon:

Ronald Wilson Reagan:

George H. W. Bush:

Clinton:

And Dubya:

No Jimmy Carter? 🙁

The most interesting speech for me today is one from 2004. The keynote speech to that year’s Democratic National Congress was given by Illinois senate candidate…

Barack Obama.

They knew they had a star in the making, just a shame he was pitching for such a wuss…

He talks the talk, radical for a world where the politics of the bland and the middle is the norm in so many places. We all just hope, for all our sakes that he means it.

If he does, it could change everything, for all of us, as the likes of Lincoln, FDR and Truman did before him.

3 thoughts on “Our Four Bears…”

  3. After listening to JFK’s, Bush’s(The first coming of the Anti-Christ) and Clinton’s inauguration speech’s a couple of thoughts manifested….First of the episode of the Simpsons in which George Bush moves into the house across the road from 742 Evergreen Terrace is without question absolute genius (and i know this a bold statement) The BEST ever episode….it is political satire which very few, only a handful have achieved including in my humble estimation Sacha Baron Cohen, Chris Morris(Brasseye C.A.K.E episode) and John Stewart. Secondly, ad misted the current Obama hysteria people have to realize only one president in modern times has left the White house with an approval rating higher than when he went in….and that was of course Slick Willy..listening to his speech the man was and still is a Flawed (from the waist down) Genius..Here’s hoping we see a solid 8years of left of Centre American politics tinged with a Democratic conservative stance with regards foreign policy supplied by Slick Willy’s Hilly as Secretary of State….Rant over

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