Bizarre, Media

Chris Matthews: Obama Speech Akin To Gettysburg Address

220px-Abraham_LincolnPresObamaI have already given my view of the Inauguration Speech. However, I just read MSNBC’s Chris Matthews comparison of this unremarkable speech to the Gettysburg Address. I previously tweeted about the now formulaic approaches of Fox and MSNBC to covering the president. However, this comparison demonstrates the detachment from the actual observed news once filtered through these cable programs.


I liked the speech but I thought it was unexceptionable in both content and delivery. It was a safe speech that had a few good lines. I do not see how anyone could rank the speech as in one of the top inauguration deliveries, let alone akin to one of the greatest speech in the history of the Western World.

Within minutes of the end of the speech, Matthews said “It reminds me of another second inaugural, Lincoln’s, so much of Lincoln in that speech, from the Gettysburg Address to the second inaugural itself. He talked about the government that we want, which is infrastructure, education, regulation, all the good things, and then recognizing that government can’t solve all the problems.”

Really? I am not saying it was a bad speech but it was not a memorable speech in my view. It was predictable and largely contentless (not unlike most such speeches). I can understand liking the speech but to compare this to Gettysburg seems entirely detached from reality.

I am currently listening to MSNBC as another commentator, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., is picking up the comparison to Gettysburg and agreeing with Matthews. Listening to MSNBC sounds entirely like White House press releases. That is a problem for any journalistic organization.

80 thoughts on “Chris Matthews: Obama Speech Akin To Gettysburg Address”

  1. I watched one of the tv shows last night which had three smart historians discussing the Inaugural Address. They were all very approving of the speech. I watched the speech again on one of the networks and I agree that it was better than any speech since FDR. I watched all of the speeches on CSPAN from FDR to present day. Ike was tripe, Nixon was evil, Ford wasnt bad, Bushie One was a weenie, Clinton was so so, Bushie Two was weenie Two, Lyndon Johnson was very good and so was Truman. The “ask not what you’re country can do for you guy” was a phony. Obama had the best “Delivery” of word and gesture of any of them.

    Those who were present for Lincoln’s Four Score and Seven Years Ago speech were not as high on it as those who read the text in the papers.

    Of the other speakers yesterday I was not impressed by the Poet or the Preacher. Perhaps we could leave both of those speaker catagories out next time. After all, the President always asks for God to Bless the United States of America. Nuff said.

  2. Matthews aside … Obama is going to be a force to reckon with within the Democratic party for years to come. He and Clinton, together, will be organizing and rallying from sea to shining sea for decades to come.

    That’s reality, not Matthews-type hyperbole, and very, very bad news for republicans and those who wish to promote a third party.

  3. I am not saying it was a bad speech but it was not a memorable speech in my view. It was predictable and largely contentless (not unlike most such speeches).
    —————
    nope, I cannot agree. It is incredibly gutsy to stand in front of the World and voice intent to support the elements that are wedge in a divided Nation. I don’t know about comparing it to the Gettysburg address but in this 1 speech he left no doubt about the Presidents stance on Gay marriage, Healthcare, Medicare, Medicaid and etc. and I consider that to be wholly memorable. He is speaking to a whole Country and so he is speaking in the language that will be heard by even the least educated and most powerless ….so it is a broad and encompassing statement.

    He’s an elegant Manly Man….IMHO….

  4. “Terror Tuesdays” will continue:

    “Brennan is the hitman of this administration.” -Jeremy Scahill

    Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley’s New Film Exposes Hidden Truths of Covert U.S. Warfare

    http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/22/dirty_wars_jeremy_scahill_and_rick (a remarkable piece)

    Premiering this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the new documentary “Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield” follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill to Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen as he chases down the hidden truths behind America’s expanding covert wars. We’re joined by Scahill and the film’s director, Rick Rowley, an independent journalist with Big Noise Films. “We’re looking right now at a reality that President Obama has essentially extended the very policies that many of his supporters once opposed under President Bush,” says Scahill, author of the bestseller “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” and a forthcoming book named after his film. “One of the things that humbles both of us is [when] you arrive at a village in Afghanistan and knock on someone’s door, you’re the first American they’ve seen since the Americans that kicked that door in and killed half their family,” Rowley says. “We promised them that we would do everything we could to make their stories be heard in the U.S. — finally, we’re able to keep those promises.”

  6. We heard from both “His Master’s Voice”

    (for those who remember the Gramophone era…)

  9. nick said of Chris Matthews “He’s a court jester not a journalist.”

    That about sums it up.

    ***************

    mespo,

    Great link on the Civil War death toll stats. That story slipped past my radar last year. The story of Dr. Hacker’s numbers is interesting in and of itself. It can be described as what? Historical forensic comparative demographics? The subject is illustrative of something that has come up in discussion here before and that is the resolution of data moving backward in time. Still, 20% is a statistically significant change. Thanks for the link.

  14. A 100,000 Americans were killed in the civil war.Lincoln didn’t have a better solution? I think he wasn’t much of a president. He wouldn’t send his stepson to fight in his war.

  15. Bron, Tip was the consummate glad handing, drink a bottle of Bushmill and hammer out legislation pol. Funny, that is what helped Republicans gain control of the House. They did cariactures of Tip in commercials..it was pretty easy. Ol’ Tip is looking pretty good now in some respects. Michelle would have to work on the 55 inch girth he had. However, there was no hiding that Irish, alcoholic nose.

  17. The only two things Obama has in common with Lincoln are:

    1) The presidency,

    2) They both looked up to former presidents.

  18. First, as far as we know, Lincoln did not have a team of speechwriters and a bunch of flacks to promote his agenda. Second, although we know that more recent presidents do have teams of speechwriters to assist in writing their speeches, they have, as a team, occasionally crafted some very memorable lines in the past, like “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” Third, we know that today, in spite of technological advances, making research far easier, that even with the “best” speechwriters, the best that modern presidents are able to communicate are vapid, banal word repetitions and other rhetorical devices that pass for profundity only among illiterates and sycophants.

    Chris Matthews, Piers Morgan, and Al Sharpton may be getting tingles from Obama’s every word–and they get a broad national platform to express their opinions–but that only reflects the sad state of affairs of our country today.

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