Matthews: Obama’s second inaugural was just like Lincoln’s
posted at 7:41 pm on January 21, 2013 by Erika Johnsen
Presented sans comment.
Reminds me of another second inaugural — Lincoln’s. So much of Lincoln in that speech, the Gettysburg address to the second inaugural itself. I thought was interesting was an attempt to draw a balance. Of course, he’s a man of the progressive side, but, he tried to draw a balance there between a government rule by an elite and a government ruled by a mob, both being a problem. Then he talked about the government we want, which is infrastructure, education, regulation, all the good things, and then recognized that government can’t solve all the problems. I thought that was a reaching-out, if you will…
Mm hmm. Matthews may have found the speech to be balance-striking, but Chuck Todd wasn’t quite on the same page.
It was a robust defense of a lot of progressive ideals in a way, and, yes, you heard pragmatic pieces to the speech saying, you know, we’re not going to get everything we want, things like that, we do need to learn to compromise. It was pretty clear that he was defending government and defending progressivism in a way that you didn’t always hear on the campaign trail, frankly.
Krauthammer was certainly impressed… but, not in a good way. President Obama’s specific mentions of Medicare, Social Security, climate change, gun control, and etcetera, and yet a mysterious absence of what outsiders would call the biggest challenges we face, i.e. deficits and the economy, weren’t exactly balance-striking in his mind. More like scale-tipping:
Historically, very important. Not memorable — there’s not a line here that will ever be repeated — but I think very important historically, because this was really Obama unbound. And, I think what’s most interesting is that Obama basically is declaring the end of Reaganism in this speech. … This speech today was an ode to big government. It was a hymn to big government. … This speech was a declaration — the era of big government is back, I’m the man that will do it.
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As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.
hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?
mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM
Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?
parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM
They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.
They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.
A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.
Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM
MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.
rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM
I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.
fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!
And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM
They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!
KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM
I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.
Do they even know or care that they are morons.
marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM
His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.
DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM
Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:
You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM
That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM
Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.
myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM
Nah. I’d detest the little pissant s.o.b. if he was white…or Asian…or any one of the myriad of made-up racial divisions.
Solaratov on May 24, 2013 at 11:00 PM
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