I was surprised to hear that some people were impressed with Obama's inauguration speech, thinking that it ushered in a new era of hopey-changey-something or other.

Fact is, he barely said anything at all.

I went through the full text of his speech, and boiled away anything that wasn't a tangible, quantifiable promise. That meant taking out all the rhetorical flourishes, fancied-up statements of fact, poetic opinions, and pseudo-promises containing weasel-words.

Turns out his 20 minutes of blather comes down to this:

we will create new jobs, build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines, raise health careÂ’s quality and lower its cost.

More jobs in the contruction industry.
Price controls on health care.

Anything else you think you heard was just the slick patter of a snake-oil peddler.

Posted by: Harvey at 05:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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