"...This was a workman's speech, the speech of a man impatient to get on with the serious business of the Republic....

... It was bony, filled with policy statements and demands for sacrifice and seriousness of purpose. He is a serious man. It would have been oh so easy for someone of his literary skill to have crafted a speech that would have sung to the ages. I expected that, something like the seductive words of the poet president he so admires. Instead, we received a manifesto that rejected the attitudes and policies of the Bush era, and insisted that the United States must redeem and save itself through hard work and a rededication to "our founding documents."

Hail to the Chief!" (PL)