Presidents don’t usually say goodbye the way Barack Obama did tonight.
For the past 60 or so years, they usually have sat behind their big Oval Office desk and delivered remarks to virtually no one in the room, but to the TV audience way out there … somewhere.
The president tonight spoke in an atmosphere that to me made it sound more like a campaign speech than a farewell address.
OK. That’s as borderline negative as I’m going to get. I was proud to have voted twice for Barack Obama. Tonight he reaffirmed my pride in his call for Americans to rediscover all the things they have in common, that we’re all merely just citizens.
Yes, indeed, there were plenty of veiled comparisons to his successor. He implored us to steer away from divisions of Americans along racial, religious or ethnic lines. The presidential campaign we’ve just endured — in my view — was a divide-and-conquer endeavor. The president reminded us that our republic works best when we do not allow those divisions to consume us.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2017/01/10/full-text-of-president-obamas-farewell-speech/?mod=e2tw
There were a few omissions worth noting. I heard virtually no mention of Congress, which fought him virtually at every step along the way. There was no mention of some of the foreign-policy missteps that occurred during the past eight years.
However, I intend here to give the president all the credit he deserves for this fundamental triumph.
The nation, he said, is fundamentally better off — in any measurable way you can fathom — than it was when he took office.
We are safer. Our economy is stronger. We’ve expanded civil rights protection.
Our country remains — despite the fear-mongering rhetoric of some among us — the greatest nation on Earth.
Well done, Mr. President.
And, oh yes, I will miss you.
