Obama's Speech

I was struck by his skillful mixing of a state of the union speech with the more general aspects of an inaugeration speech. He had reassurances to foreign powers, in addition to setting out a list of the challenges facing the United States. He also did a good job of invoking our forefathers, and that specific point in history where a nascent nation could've been extinguished, but toughed it out. He set a tone of mixed pragmatism and idealism throughout the speech. Obama also made clear allusions to the Bush era, and just as clearly repudiated it...while Bush sat there no doubt oblivious.I'm looking forward to seeing a transcript, because this was a Byzantine task he had--so many things he had to do in those 18 minutes. In doing so many things, he had to in some ways tone down the soaring rhetoric that typifies many of these kinds of speeches, and thus I think some of the power of the speech reveals itself more gradually, and will continue to do so over time.