Obama Innaguration Speech

This has been a historic day. I admit I'm a bit disappointed. I have expected a lot from this guy. He sees himself as a writer and I was expecting some insight and some enlightenment. The old distinction between perfect words and adequate ones is the "difference between lightning and the lightning bug." We got the lightning bug. To be fair, it was a big assignment. There are so many things wrong, so many enemies and so many problems that there may be no unifying idea, no clarified distillate to savor. Maybe instead of a poem we got an anthology, a generality rather than vision. And the mediocrities that followed him didn't help. But he aspires to Lincoln and that raises the bar. Those expectations were created by him, not me. So I get to be disappointed.
When Lincoln wrote the speech at Gettysburg his son had just died, his other son was sick and his wife was hysterical. Lincoln was still wearing a mourning ribbon. The war was slipping away and Lincoln feared he would not win the next election. The Union had suffered a horrible draw but the South was terribly hurt and vulnerable. Meade did not follow up and Lee got away--Meade actually offered his resignation. Lincoln showed up as a courtesy; this was a state affair, not federal. He spoke after Everett, a famous orator who delivered a speech steeped in the Greek tradition which formed much of the basis of American thought as well as Romanticism and the Transcendentalism that was to emerge. He was a genius, a man of letters, a scholar and a diplomat who was regarded as one of the profound men of his time. He spoke for two hours and was brilliant.
Lincoln speech was 272 words and redefined the nation.