A short inauguration speech?

Barack Obama's inauguration speech, less than an hour away, might be one of the shortest in history. Time reports today that the president-to-be might spend only 20 minutes addressing the nation and world.

The shortest inaugural address? George Washington's second, a mere 135 words in 1793.

And, if you'd like to set the inaugural bar low for your president-to-be, we offer William Henry Harrison, our ninth president, on March 4, 1841.

A driving snowstorm greeted Harrison on the East Portico of the Capitol, and in the first minute of the longest inaugural speech on record, he signaled to his audience that they should have waited for the next day's newspaper account.

Said Harrison:

It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former. However much the world may have improved in many respects in the lapse of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made by the virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence.

This was not merely the stilted language of a previous era. Harrison's speech was thought horrible then.

The new president, then 68 years old, caught cold sometime after spending much of the day, including the two hours of his speech, outside and without an overcoat. He died of pneumonia one month into his presidency.

If you'd like to punish yourself further, here's the full text.