Tuesday, January 20, 2009

He nailed it!

I do, after all, have a little time to reflect on Obama's speech. How amazing it was. It was humble and yet it was inspiring. It was intellectual and yet it was down to earth. It attracted people from all walks of life. If anyone can pull the nation together in these very tough times, Obama can. Conservatives and liberals alike were inspired by Obama's speech. I think the SF Chronicle should call it a success!

There were gaffes, and the Internet is always excited about that. Here's Language Log's analysis of the 44th president comment.

Then of course there was the oath. Roberts really screwed that up, and after trying to cue him, Obama finally went along with him. Not being a Roberts fan, I had to take a little epicaricacy in his screw-up. Heck, he had one thing to do.

All in all, it was a beautiful ceremony. My only complaint was with the poem. It didn't inspire me, and I thought she did a poor job reading it. Arethra Franklin sang beautifully, as usual. I loved the Musical performance from John Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill.

There were 1. 6 million in attendance, which dwarfs the 400,000 for Bush. Here's a site that talks about numbers on the Internet.

Good job, Americans!

2 comments:

Cat Herself said...

Yup - I'm totally with your assessments of the day. The music was transporting . . . the poetry sucked . . . the oath gaffe . . . I mean, really, he was READING it, right? Sigh.

I am ready to dust off and get down to work, now - like our Leader said! Yay!

I just hope he can have the "I don't care about getting re-elected as much as I care about doing what is right" attitude that he seems to have when he speechifies. Ya know?

arnie said...

Arethra Franklin?

She sounds like a certain body part not usually mentioned in polite company. ;)