Writers praise Barack Obama's inaugural address - long on plot - stood on shoulders - 0 views
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Long on plot (and it will thicken), it did what literature does best: the backward glance, the standing on shoulders, the salute to ancestors and other sources of wisdom.
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He is our first (in the best sense of the word) aristocratic president," author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell told The Times. "Bush was a buddy. Clinton was the kindly uncle. Obama is a prince."
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Some, like memoirist Patricia Hampl, praised Obama's plain speaking. "I was glad," she said, "that he denied himself rhetorical flourishes and gave a speech as refined and restrained in its power so that political language itself was restored to its greatest value -- saying what the speaker means."
