Good grief.
Today, President Obama channelled or attempted to channel the following:
JFK
Reagan (several times; FAIL)
George W. Bush (ditto)
LBJ
Rush Limbaugh
FDR (too, too many times)
Woodrow Wilson (ditto)
MLK, Jr. (of course!)
Lincoln
Gandalf
George Washington (FAIL)
It was like a ping-pong match between good and evil.
My head hurts.
(No, I didn’t watch, again: I have a job. Rush is gipping, and I’m listening.)
The speech was a lot of pap and…flat. Just flat. Why? Because anyone could have given it; worse, it gave the impression that Obama doesn’t know who he is or wants to be (though I hope he goes the Washington/Reagan route). Worse, he was trying too hard to be soaring.
He flubbed the oath, but…So what? It’s cold, nerves…Eh.
The poem was horrid but laughable. The benediction by Lowery? Praying that “yellow will be mellow”, that “the red man can get ahead”, and that “whites will embrace what’s right”? What?
That said, one of the biggest cheers was for our National Anthem. Good sign.
The ceremony closed with one of my favourite songs (and the muscial elite vomit!), “Stars and Stripes Forever”. Let me tell you: should I ever become president, it’s no more “Hail To The Chief” for me. No, it’ll be “Stars and Stripes Forever”, all the way.
Love what Rush said yesterday; it’s so true:
When I look at Obama, I see my president. I see a man who’s in charge of this country for the next four years. I care very deeply what he intends to do. I care what his policies are. I’m not going to give him a pass because he represents some sordid past of our country and as such he gets free rein to do what he wants while we say nothing because we owe this to him, based on our original sin of slavery.
Also, as far as the future of freedom goes, you need to read this, something I hadn’t the time to get to.
Oh, can’t forget:
10 comments
I though his spech was very good. It was dry, I give you that, but these are not times to go around doing flowery speeches. It was the justice that messed up the oath ceremony, not Obama.
They actually had it on in the cafeteria/dining room here @ work … along with a C.R.O.W.D. of people watching (while pretty much avoided it). I can’t recall that they have ever shown the inauguration before (in my 17 years here), but I could be wrong. So much irony this week …
Here’s how I like to put it to my Republican friends. When I was a little kid, my brother got an awesome pair of cowboy boots, and everything was great until he kicked me in the shins. Then my mom took the cowboy boots and put them on top of the closet out of his reach, because he proved he couldn’t handle the responsibility. You people have had the cowboy boots for the last eight years and kicked me and the rest of America in the shins (and possibly the ascending colon) for eight long years. Now you’re getting your cowboy boots taken away. If my side also cannot handle the responsibility of cowboy boots, you are welcome to attempt to reclaim them in 2012, but until then, it is our turn.
The speech was excellent.
[...] O’Hara gives Obama a failing grade for today’s [...]
Rebecca, it isn’t that Republicans are giving up the cowboy boots, it’s that the new owner of the cowboy boots has threatened to walk through cow patties with them on. That’s upsetting b/c I (we) love the cowboy boots and don’t want them ruined. Anyway, good luck to the new rustler; let’s hope he’s a cowbuster and not just a dude.
Great analogy, Rex. Though I’m not so sure where Rebecca gets her…um…violent perspective…! Bush was hardly, I don’t know, Castro or Hitler or something. He did some disastrous things, but…
I’m sorry that it took me so long to get here and comment this entry. I was directed here by a friend who found it, but given my hours at work, I’ve been unable to do much except sleep and go to work since Inauguration Day. Ah nursing. Anyway, I bookmarked it and promised I’d come back.
However, I do want to give you a little bit of a background on Rev. Lowery’s speech, because I know a lot of people who were pretty confused by it. I got a lot of questions about it at work too.
Basically, that part of Rev. Lowery’s speech was based on a sadly popular saying among black people, especially back in his day. My mom heard it when she was a kid, too, talking about black people’s variant skin tones and the preference of lighter tones over darker ones that went as such: “If you’re white, you’re alright. If you’re red, get ahead. If you’re yellow, you’re mellow. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re black, get back.” Basically? The darker you were as a black person, the more you sucked. And now? Maybe people can end that crap.
Hi Anne, and thanks for stopping in.
It may be an old saying, but what most offended and shocked many was the insinuation that white people, as a whole, were not acting rightly. This was particularly grating considering the fact that white people elected Mr. Obama.
I too hope we can end the garbage; as National Review said in its latest issue, post-racial America is very late in her debut, as Rev. Lowery’s speech proves.
Agree to disagree, I guess. I honestly didn’t find it offensive, but I guess I can see how people would. I come from a context more of hating that my mother had to have words like that hurled at her, and liked hearing them turned around. YMMV.
By the way, beautiful photography, especially the car shots. I may make a future purchase from you, I have a brother in law who would drool over those cars.
Well, thank you, Anne. It was that last bit that stuck in so many minds (that and the suggestion that Asians are hyper or something…).
Last night I was watching “Imitation of Life”. It’s amazing how poorly black people were treated in this country once upon a time, and that a woman (or man, no doubt) could lose their job & friends simply for being black, or even half-black. That anyone should have such words or actions thrown at them merely on the basis of their skin colour, in any time or any country, is loathsome and shameful indeed. I’m glad that the vast, broad majority of Americans are way past that!
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