Who is a Good Speaker

Analysis of Barack Obama’s Inauguration Speech

Barack Obama’s Inaugural speech was well-written and well-read. He read the teleprompter well, pauses brilliantly, changes his pace, speed, tone and volume for maximum dramatic impact.  Everything about Obama’s body language and use of his voice conveys confidence, authority, and command.

Despite his confidence in front of camera he turns his head back and forth from the Teleprompter screen to the right screen a lot. He is doing this every 2-3 seconds. He would come across much calmer and even more confident if he simply read off of the same TelePrompTer for a longer period of time before turning to the other prompter. This would create an even steadier presence and allow for people in the audience to feel as though he were speaking directly to them.

He was able to communicate messages of which were somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, he presented that the world is in crisis and that tough choices and sacrifice would have to be made by all. On the other hand, he expressed a lot of optimism that problems could be solved. He criticised old ideologies that saw free markets as infallible, and yet expressed his core belief in capitalism. Obama focused on painting a broad picture of the human condition at the moment and what his general approaches would be. He’s not afraid to suggest that these radical times will require radical solutions but on the other hand, he is mainstream, moderate, and very reassuring. He consistently flavoured his speech with a wider range of yin and yang than his predecessors. Obama thanked God and mentioned the US is a country of Christians, Jews and Muslims, but he also, courageously, mentioned that we are a nation that includes non-believers.

Obama’s speech lacked any real stand out lines akin to the likes of John. F. Kennedy’s “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” And although it isn’t something that is particularly negative aspect, it is worth pointing out as it is harder for politicians nowadays to use these type of lines as they can come across as ‘cheesy’ or ‘gimmicky.’

Obama’s conservative opponents tried to have him disqualified by claiming he couldn’t prove he was a natural born citizen and fought it all the way to the Supreme Court.  With this is mind, the small mistake he made with his swearing in portion by not saying it word for word in a correct manner with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts meant that he had to take the oath of office a second time at the White House. Although this would have been normally dismissed by the courts, such is the microscope over Obama’s every word that he had take the oath a second time.