Kinsley's WaPo column today:
It's interesting to compare Obama's first big presidential speech with Roosevelt's. On the all-important Reassure-o-Meter, I'd call it a tie. Roosevelt wins points for venturing into dangerous areas. For example, he talked at length about "the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success." Can you imagine what Fox News could do with a line like that if a Democratic president (let alone a rich Democratic president) uttered it today? On the other hand, FDR talks about "the overbalance of population in our industrial centers" and calls for a national program to send back home "those best fitted for the land." Not quite sure what that's all about, but Al Sharpton could have a good time with it.
Yeah, something tells me "the overbalance of populations" isn't quite the speechwriting gold it used to be...
--Noam Scheiber