I just watched a presidential speech that was thoughtful, articulate, and inspiring. There was no fear-mongering nor threats, but there was a nod to us atheist heathens and a promise to bring back science.
I gotta say, the next four years are looking good from here.
Said by a friend while watching Aretha sing: “This is the first time I’ve ever heard this song not suck.”
My response: “It’s Aretha Franklin, dude. She could be singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with a terrible head cold and would still be sixteen types of awesome.”
Let me be the umpteenth person to be thrilled by the science and nonbeliever shoutsout. I also liked “The question is not whether government is too big or too small, the question is whether it works.”
After two weeks of joblessness, I finally got a job. Part-time at first, transitioning to fulltime. And it had to start today! Only four hours, 9-1, but that made me miss the ceremony.
President Obama! Hell, yes.
(And now, for the first time, I’m older than the President!)
It was a tough speech to give with Bush sitting there. It amounts to this joker started 2 wars, wrecked the economy of the world , and destroyed the prestige of America and now I have to fix it.
When they announced what she’d be singing, I actually said “WTF!” But only Aretha Franklin could turn that awful song into real music.
Which is more than I can say for that terrible “poet.”
And I loved that Obama had to escort Bush to the helicopter. Sort of like when you’re hosting a party, and you have to escort an obnoxious drunk to his ride home.
Does anyone have a transcript of the benediction? Hearing you guys talk about it makes me sad I missed it, and I’m one of those flaming atheists who just got a shout-out.
I only watched from 11:40 til when Obama left the stage. My tv broke last night so I had to run over to my mother’s house to watch it.
Pluses: Generally all around feeling of history in the making. Very good speech too. Inspirational without being too cliche or pandering to the LCD. I like how he addressed the various challenges we face, and false dichotomies. I loved loved what he said about security vs freedom and how our freedoms were secured during much more perilous times so we have no excuse to tread on them. I thought it was interesting that atheists got a nod!
Minuses: Obama fucked up the oath lol. Of course the Justice feeding it to him seemed very grumpy and did a poor job of feeding it to him. Aretha’s singing was… odd. And is it just me or did Cheny look like Truman Capote in that get up?
“President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.”
“President Obama did not grow up hunting and fishing, but he recognizes the great conservation legacy of America’s hunters and anglers and has great respect for the passion that hunters and anglers have for their sports.”