Reply #2: An astonishing, historic speech! [View All]

And I'm old enough to recognize historic speeches when I hear or read them. I was born a few weeks after FDR died, I watched both parties' conventions in 1952 and 1956, worked for JFK at 15 and have been involved ever since. In all that long time, there have been just a handful of speeches of this import and vision. JFK had three or four such potentially world changing speeches. Perhaps one of RFK's. And Mario Cuomo's great convention speech back in ... what was it?... '88? And Obama's '04 keynote speech. Bill Clinton was a terrific speaker but his speeches never hit this level. Howard Dean at his peak in '03 could move me to cheers and tears, but he never came close to this shaping of history and projection of both the future as it could be and how we can move toward it with dignity, confidence and humility. These are Obama's cadences and his ideas ring true as his own, but there's definitely some Sorenson shining through the speechwriting as well. How marvelous to read and hear these words and the vision they represent. How awesome. How needed at this exact moment in history.