My intellectual readers will love Stanley Fish's analysis of Obama's
inaugural speech. Fish is an important thinker on the subject of
literary text. He points out that the inaugural was primarily a string
of words, like beads, that formed a necklace laid flat. It didn't go
anywhere; it was entirely about the present.
I personally liked the 'we will triumph in the war on terror' part because I am a great George W. Bush fan. I also like the George Washington ending of the inaugural because I am also a George Washington fan. Washington, like Bush, fought an eight year war of liberation, relentlessly struggling against bottomless domestic opposition. Like Bush, Washington had help from two brilliant strategists Alexander Hamilton and Marquis de La Fayette.
Fish suggests we will get more such textual analysis of future Obama speeches. Good.