I watched and listened to President Obama's Farewell Speech made in his hometown Chicago on January 10, 2017. I will probably add some comments to this post tomorrow. Below is a link to the text of his speech at my Raucus Caucus Blog. I found it at the NY Times site and they had it from a Whitehouse release.
President Obama's Farewell Speech Complete Text
I suspect we will see some more coverage and comments on this. I have printed the text and plan to read through it before posting anything or copying any other comments. (Note of Jan 11, 2017) Well, I have listened to about an hour of comments about Obama's speech and also read and re-read his 5000 or so words.
I heard the word "legacy" dozens of times. The implication being that Obama was only attempting to build or shore up his legacy with this speech. This subtle attack on Obama by claiming apparently that he is only interested in his legacy rings very hollow. Of those 5000 words, only about 200 of them referred to what might be called his accomplishments. That is about 4% of the speech. Most of his speech was thanks to his supporters, staff and family and the Chicago activist experience for the support it gave him. A good part of his speech was remorse or wishes that he could have accomplished more.
The majority of the speech was a listing of problems and trends which threaten citizens and our democracy with its links to constitutional freedoms. I guess this is a bit of history instruction which was OK. But it suffers from Obama's apparent inability to write a simple sentence with some punch and in a way we might remember what he said. Even minutes after his speeches, it is hard to remember a single thing he says. Also, what he did, Abraham Lincoln did in his Gettysburg address in 272 words.
***Stay tuned as History is made in the United States --- Doug Wiken
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