Reactions to Obama's Second Inaugural Address
Andrew Sullivan: "If you have long believed, as I have, that this man could easily become the liberal Reagan by the end of his second term... then this speech will not have surprised you."
James Fallows: "I was expecting an anodyne tone-poem about healing national wounds, surmounting partisanship, and so on. As has often been the case, Obama confounded expectations -- mine, at least. Four years ago, when people were expecting a barn-burner, the newly inaugurated president Obama gave a deliberately downbeat, sober-toned presentation about the long challenges ahead. Now -- well, it's almost as if he has won re-election and knows he will never have to run again and hears the clock ticking on his last chance to say what he cares about. If anyone were wondering whether Obama wanted to lower expectations for his second term ... no, he apparently does not."
Ezra Klein: "In his first term, Obama changed policy. In his second, he wants to change minds."
Chris Cillizza: "This was a speech that could only be given by someone who knew that he would never have to run for re-election again... This was Obama unbound. Distill Obama's speech to a single sentence and that sentence is: 'I'm the president, deal with it.'"
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