Words to Remember: Our New President Speaks

The numbers are in.

A.C. Nielsen says 37.8 million of us watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama on television. In terms of televised inaugurations, that's up there. But, it's not even close to the 41.8 million who watched Ronald Reagan take the oath 28 years ago. This may help to give it some perspective: In 1981, there were 226.5 million of us here in the U.S. -- the current U.S. population numbers about 305 million.

Here's a statistic that's even more interesting though: There were 70 million hits on websites to watch the inauguration. While comparing website hits to TV viewership is like comparing apples and oranges, that 70 million figure is still impressive; especially since a lot of people were at work that day and unable to watch on television. The internet as a source of news is clearly here to stay.

That got me thinking, though, about the inaugural address itself.

I was just 10 years old, living in Washington, D.C., when John F. Kennedy was elected and took the oath of office. On a freezing cold, sunlit day in January, that new president delivered his first inaugural address. The news media covering the speech embraced a short phrase that seemed to sum up the challenge of the times and the legacy of the man himself: "My fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." Actually, I always liked another line from that speech. It said: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. ..."

There have been other great lines from inaugural addresses. In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to Depression-weary Americans and told them, "This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

So, what words would we come away from the Obama inauguration with?

The President's 27-year old speech writer is Jon Favreau. Jon, with co-writers Adam Frankel and Ben Rhodes, was the one who resurrected the theme from Obama's 2004 Senate race in Illinois: "Yes, we can". So, what gem would they give us in the President's first official address to the nation?

While some have suggested that the President's speech failed to deliver on moments of greatness, I think it did stir in many of us a sense of pride and a recommitment to the work left before us as Americans. Specifically, I liked these phrases:

- "Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met."

- "Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiousity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history."

But, I think the best of the lines came at the conclusion of the speech: "Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we took that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

It may not have been the greatest inaugural speech ever given, but watching hundreds of thousands of Americans waving American flags on a sub-freezing day in January couldn't help but make you proud to be an American, especially given the significance of the occasion.

It was also pretty good TV.

Downing Bolls