Obama and The Critics

The rush to judgment of Barack Obama's Inaugural Address was as predictably swift and as abundant as I expected in my earlier blog, "What Did Obama Say?" Within hours after he uttered his closing words, the media and the Internet were overflowing with post-mortem analysis. Surprisingly, many opinions expressed disappointment.

Nearly a week later, after the gold dust of that historic day settled, Frank Rich of the New York Times took his turn and summarized the majority opinion: "Obama did not offer his patented poetry in his Inaugural Address... He did not recreate J.F.K.'s inaugural, or Lincoln's second, or F.D.R.'s first." Considering the crescendo of breathless anticipation that preceded the speech, it would have been difficult for J.F.K., F.D.R., and Lincoln rolled into one to get rave reviews.

I disagree with the majority opinion. Obama is, if nothing else, keenly aware of context. He fully understood the historic enormity of the occasion and the current state of the union, and so he chose to deliver a serious, straightforward speech that would be in keeping with the tenor of the times, rather than do a star turn of "patented poetry." In fact, if you look more closely at his critics, you can see that they, too, shared that point of view:

Several former presidential speechwriters expressed their opinions in a panel in the New York Times called, "The Speech: The Experts' Critique."

•William Safire, who wrote for Richard Nixon said that Obama's speech "was solid, respectable, uplifting, suitably short, superbly delivered, but -- in light of the towering expectations whipped up that his speech might belong in the company of those by Lincoln, F.D.R. and Kennedy -- fell short of the anticipated immortality."

•William Gavin, who also wrote for Richard Nixon: "We will remember this occasion more for the man who gave it than for the words he said. He could have stood there for 20 minutes of silence and still communicated great things about America."

•Jeff Shesol, who wrote for Bill Clinton: "It was not the most inspirational speech that Barack Obama has ever given, but it's surely the most purposeful. He long ago proved that he could make people weep. Today he seemed determined to make them think and, more important, to act."

And there were the political writers:

•Peggy Noonan, who also wrote for George H.W. Bush: "I don't know what the networks will use as the sound bite ... to show the highlight of the speech, or capture its essence. This is not all bad. When a speech is so calm and cool that you have to read it to absorb it fully, the speech just may get read."

•Michael Gerson, who also wrote for George W. Bush: "Heading into this inaugural address, many expected the speech to be rhetorically masterful, but perhaps ideologically shallow. Instead, we heard a speech that was rhetorically flat and substantively interesting."

•Gerald F. Seib of the Wall Street Journal: "His address was more prose than poetry, seemingly designed in some passages to keep control of the hope his very presence on the west steps of the Capitol had inspired."

•John Heilemann, of New York magazine, thought that the speech "was less than thrilling in itself, perhaps by design. Its structure was formal, classical, the substance largely abstract. There were no anecdotes or narratives, personal or otherwise. There were few rhetorical flourishes, no gratuitous bids for Bartlett's."

•John Dickerson of Slate: "It was a good speech but not a soaring one. This may have been because Obama has given so many strong speeches; he's graded on his own special curve."

•Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist: "Best not to dazzle on Opening Day. Otherwise, they'll expect magic all the time."

•David M. Shribman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist: "One searches in vain in yesterday's Inaugural Address for words for the ages, words that even remotely match the deed and the day. But there was poetry in that as well. Because in taking the oath of office, Obama no longer was trying out for the job but was performing the job."

What a job, and what a performance!