The professor says: Inaugural speech = quintessential Obama

The Ballot's political professor, Allan Louden, says Barack Obama's inaugural speech was very Obama - something not all presidential speeches can claim.

Louden, a renowned professor of political communication at Wake Forest University, entertained and informed Ballot readers throughout the election with his analysis of ads, speeches and debates.

On Obama's inaugural address, he says:

“We the people have remained faithful to . . . the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness”

With these words Barack Obama framed a simple, short, sober inaugural speech early this afternoon, a speech rarely interrupted by celebratory applause.

Its style was more reflective of Lincoln’s conciseness—“Our patchwork heritage is strength,” “. . . endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth,” and “. . . fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages”-- than the lifting manner of Kennedy’s “Ask not” or FDR’s “All we have to fear . . .”

Speeches obtain much of their authority from the speaker’s ethos. If their words are “from the heart,” a window to their intension and good will, the speech has power. The Obama inaugural address was not designed as celebratory, but was quintessential Obama.

The idea of authorship in presidential addresses is complex and historically meaningful. In an era when most of the president’s words are ghost written, talk can become cheap, forfeiting the command reserved to the office.

The question of who wrote Kennedy’s inaugural brewed for decades, eliciting entire books examining his contribution. Thurston Clarke’s Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech that Changed America took of the task of establishing the speech as Kennedy’s even as the words were often those of Ted Sorenson.

Richard Nixon, one of the few to initially not critique Kennedy’s Inaugural, understandable for the opponent, later commented, according to Clarke, “It’s easy for Kennedy to get up and read Sorenson’s speeches, but I don’t think he is responsible unless he believes it himself.”

The Obama transition team did their part to buttress his authorship, aware of the importance the inaugural speech is the president’s voice. From accounts of his setting aside time to write, to reports of Obama feeling “intimidated” when he studied Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural, to accounts of drafts passing between Obama and his speechwriter, 27-year-old phenom Jon Favreau, there is never doubt the words are his voice

Although the literal ownership of the words matter; it is the character of the speech that gives it authenticity that makes it Obama’s, and by inference belonging to all those who voted for Obama and all those who share hope.

The themes of responsibility, power residing with the people, difficulties, and rebirth of spirit echoed not only former presidents, but Obama campaign and character. The content was a collection of his indispensable identifiers, his rhetorical core.

The legal scholar invoked the “ideals of our founding documents.”

The community organizer summoned an “America greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.”

The achiever admonished “greatness is never given, it is earned.”

The conciliator reminded the Muslim world “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

The pragmatist Biblically reproved the nation “the time has come to set aside childish things.”

Obama framed ancestors sacrifices and national character to ground the values of “hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true.”

The clarion was George Washington in the revolutionary winter, a metaphor for current times, a nation delivered by “hope and virtue.”

The president’s facility to move a nation often resides in words and symbols. That power is dramatically enhanced when the message is received as authentic.