Well, I’m sorry but that was a bit of an anti-climax. Straining to be generous in my column this morning, I wrote that I was sure that Obama would “blow them away”. Actually, I don’t think he did.
Of course, it was impossible to live up to the wildly-inflated expectations. The “Daily Show” nicely satirised these by predicting that Obama’s oration would be so brilliant that it “makes the Gettysburg address seem like a series of simian grunts.” But the actual speech was a bit flat and predictable.
Parts of it sounded like they were written by a 27-year-old sitting in Starbucks – perhaps because they actually were written by a 27-year-old sitting in Starbucks , one Jon Favreau. Some of the lines didn’t even make sense. We will “roll back the spectre of a warming planet.” Sorry, but how do you roll back a spectre? Sounds like frustrating work. There was also a bad case of mixed metaphors – “We have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter…” Mr President, you can do better than that.
As for the actual message of the speech, I think it was broadly as I predicted this morning. Sacrifice, responsibility, take our inspiration from our forefathers – and so on. On substance, I was surprised by how much sub-Bushian rhetoric there was about vanquishing terrorists – but maybe he needed that to balance the fairly clear repudiation of the excesses of the “war on terror”. I thought it was bold to say that the US is a nation of “Christians and Muslims”. There was a swift kick at greedy bankers, but that’s more or less obligatory these days. And there was a promise to work with the rest of the world. Nothing objectionable there, but nothing too remarkable either.
Or have I completely missed the point?
For views and opinions on the European Union from Peter Spiegel, Joshua Chaffin, Alex Barker and Stanley Pignal, follow the 