Whether or not you supported President Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, you have to admit that he gave a nice inaugural speech. I listened to the speech (streaming online video) and turned off inaugural coverage after the entire ceremony ended. I really am not interested in watching or hearing talking heads dissect the speech. The audacity of those who interpret the meaning of someone else's words for the masses astounds me. I used to shroud my brain in my skeptic's umbrella in my English literature classes when professors would tell us what specific passages of poetry or novels meant—as if they knew what was going on in the author's head as he or she wrote them. And by the way, lest anyone mistake my meaning, when I wrote about shrouding my brain, I meant figuratively instead of literally.
I can't tell you what Obama's speech meant, because only he knows the real meaning and intent behind the words he delivered. All I will say is that in my entirely subjective opinion, it was a nice speech, not unlike other nice inaugural speeches. And perhaps that's all it needed to be. However this listener was hoping for more.
