{"id":27714,"date":"2013-01-20T03:17:16","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T03:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=27714"},"modified":"2013-01-20T03:17:16","modified_gmt":"2013-01-20T03:17:16","slug":"in-second-inaugural-address-can-president-obama-reassure-a-worried-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=27714","title":{"rendered":"In Second Inaugural Address, Can President Obama Reassure a Worried Public?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/content\/newsweek\/2013\/01\/20\/in-second-inaugural-address-can-president-obama-reassure-a-worried-public.html\" target=\"_blank\">In Second Inaugural Address, Can President Obama Reassure a Worried Public?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Daily Beast<\/a><br \/>\n2013-01-19<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/contributors\/evan-thomas.html\" target=\"_blank\">Evan Thomas<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>These are gloomy times for an inauguration. In Newsweek, Evan Thomas asks: On Monday, can the president rise to the occasion with a historically inspiring message?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The last Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009, dawned bright and cold. More than a million people, possibly the largest live audience ever to see a president inaugurated, and certainly the biggest since <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lyndon_B._Johnson\" target=\"_blank\">Lyndon Johnson\u2019s<\/a> inauguration in 1965, streamed to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Mall\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Mall<\/a> for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Barack_Obama\" target=\"_blank\">Barack Obama\u2019s<\/a> oath-taking as the 44th president of the United States. Even the most jaded old Washington hands could feel a different vibe in the crowd\u2014people seemed excited, happy, some teary-eyed to witness, for the first time in history, an African-American sworn in as chief executive.<\/p>\n<p>A president who is writing (or, more likely, editing and refining) his inaugural address is confronted with a very difficult challenge: how to speak in his own true voice while at the same time speaking for every man and woman. The challenge to be at once unique and universal has defeated virtually all of Obama\u2019s predecessors. With a few memorable \u00adexceptions\u2014like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_F._Kennedy\" target=\"_blank\">JFK\u2019s<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abraham_Lincoln\" target=\"_blank\">Lincoln\u2019s<\/a> second, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Franklin_D._Roosevelt\" target=\"_blank\">FDR\u2019s<\/a> first (\u201cthe only thing to fear is fear itself\u201d)\u2014inaugural addresses have long disappointed their expectant listeners. The words rarely live up to the occasion. Most inaugural addresses \u201ctend not to be very good,\u201d says presidential historian <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Beschloss\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Beschloss<\/a>. \u201cThe best rhetoric has been used up in the campaign, and presidents don\u2019t want to promise too much. They are planning to give their first <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/State_of_the_Union_address\" target=\"_blank\">State of the Union addresses<\/a> in a few weeks and they don\u2019t want to preempt. Plus, most presidents are not good speakers or writers.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/content\/newsweek\/2013\/01\/20\/in-second-inaugural-address-can-president-obama-reassure-a-worried-public.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Second Inaugural Address, Can President Obama Reassure a Worried Public? The Daily Beast 2013-01-19 Evan Thomas These are gloomy times for an inauguration. In Newsweek, Evan Thomas asks: On Monday, can the president rise to the occasion with a historically inspiring message? The last Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009, dawned bright and cold. More [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,8,26,20],"tags":[13431,13384],"class_list":["post-27714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-evan-thomas","tag-the-daily-beast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}