"I think it has really, really been an remarkable event in terms of getting everybody to stand back and say, look at what we have seen here in America," Powell said. "The America we remember is back again."STEEERIKE ONE!
"I am surprised," Powell said. "I am deeply pleased it happened in my lifetime. He did sort of come out of nowhere. But he came out of nowhere with a sense of optimism, self-confidence, but not overconfidence, and a belief in the basic ideals of this country. What he did was ran a campaign that was almost a military operation in terms of its efficiency, and it's dogged determination to achieve a goal, and he said to all Americans, let's come together, as he says so often. It is not a red state or a blue state, but we're all in one country. And he touched the American people at a time when the American people wanted to be touched, and they needed to be touched. They needed to be reminded of what this country stands for."STEEEERIKE TWO!
"We have a man who happens to be an African-American, but beyond that, he is a qualified, capable, transformational figure – that's why we elected him," Powell said. "The fact he is African-American says so much about who we are as a people, as a country. It has energized the country and energized the world. Parades the night of the election, not only in Chicago and New York, but in Rio, in Berlin, in Obama, Japan -- there is such a place. They're building a statue in it for him already. The world wondered, can America really do this? Aren't they too divided? Can they really pull something like this off? And we said to the world, yes, we can, and we did."STEEERIKE THREE!
On this day in 2000, I cringed at the idea of listening to George W. Bush -- the worst public speaking Chief Executive in the history of recorded sound -- for four years. Given the alternative, I was relieved (but not happy) about having to listen to him for an additional four. Now, I've got a different problem; people who know how to speak well, but refuse to say anything that isn't, at its core, pliable and meaningless.
good point