Originally posted by: So
Originally posted by: Analog
Will it one day be chiseled into Marble?
That depends entirely on the next four to eight years. Whether he is a great president. worthy of a monument is up to him. He'll be in the history books for being first, of course, but great? We'll soon see.
Yeah. It will take several years, maybe even a generation for the significance of his presidency to be realized, and for what can certainly--though also may not--become a great inauguration address.
Most inaugural addresses are pretty crappy anyway; history only remembers a handful of them, but many seem to think that far more are significant than really were. The last "great" one would be Kennedy's, and the most recently significant one before that would be William Henry Harrison's--but only because it was the longest one ever at 2 and a half hours, and because it was his hubris at insisting he deliver it without coat and hat in the freezing rain that directly caused his pneumonia and death 30 days later. The address, itself, was extremely boring as it focused on humdrum policy and meaningless banter. The language was decidedly un-floral.
We already know that Obama is a great speech writer--his 04 address at the DNC and his speech concerning the state of racism in America last year (response to Rev Wright) will be remembered by history, no doubt about that. This is something we haven't seen in an American president for some time, so I'd say there is a pretty high chance that this inaugural address will be great, and will become significant.
A lot of that depends on his presidency, of course. No one wants to remembered only by what they said their first day on the job....
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