Obama's speech is pretty good

marrymemylove

and I am no blind fan. He's never appealed to me as a candidate.

But his "I will be your President too" and his invocation of overseas listeners I thought were good. I like the Lincoln overtones. Hopefully there will be less Jefferson and more Lincoln.?

The only thing that has grated so far is his reference to the Gettysburg Address. Because while it is certainly important that this tone has returned to the US, there are 2 things that make it grate.

1. Government of the people, for the people and by the people was in no danger of perishing from the earth, only the US. There are dozens of countries out there where it is alive and well.

2. Americans don't really believe government is part of them, if they did they wouldn't hate government intervention so much. To me that's the difference between the US and Europe/Australia. In western democracy outside the US government IS ours, we own it, we direct it, we control it. And in larger measure than you we approve of its general role. That was what Lincoln was saying, but it has never been true in the US where government was always "the other".?

?But overall Obama was pretty good. Not as good as Hillary would have been, but good. All the best to him.?