Obama's Inaugural Address was...

...well...

Here’s the thing: Obama’s main speech writer is a twenty-something who thinks it’s both funny and appropriate to pose for vulgar photos with himself, another man, and a cardboard cutout of a United States Senator. We have no idea if Jon Favreau wrote the Inaugural Address, but it sure sounds like his special brand of nebulous, cliche-driven newspeak. More hope and change, whatever that means, more storms on the horizon and quagmires at the edge of the briar patch. All delivered in that trademarked Sunday morning oration Obama favors, learned deliberately off cassette tapes Jeremiah Wright sent him at Harvard Law school.

Like with any of Obama’s speeches, we ask people talking about the Inaugural Address today what was their favorite line, and they’re instantly stumped. They can’t think of one. No turn of phrase they’d carve into marble with their own blood, sweat, and tears to be sure.

That “seminal speech on race” Chris Matthews’ lauded as “the new Gettysburg address”? Does anyone remember a line from that?

What about any of his campaign speeches? Are any of Favreau’s bon mots marble-worthy from those?

Obama is a showman who appeals to a large part of the country who has either never set foot in a black church (so they are mesmerized by something we can see done much better any given Sunday here in Chicago) or who loves listening to preachers regularly. For those of us not so inclined, it’s an act we’ve seen before, done better. His oration has never impressed us because he never says anything particularly memorable — it’s just that a large number of people love hearing his voice.

And not only that

Obama’s “Great Address” was anemic, at best, and pedestrian at worst.

And that’s coming from people who don’t like him, and aren’t going to suddenly magically start liking him today, but who truly — REALLY AND TRULY — wanted him to just knock this out of the park and give us some reason, SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to warrant the most expensive party this nation has ever thrown, at a time when collectively we barely have a pot to, uh, stew in.

With all of our economic troubles.

With all those cliche clouds hanging.

With all of the storm clouds massing on lazily-written uncharted horizons.

And he phoned in that forgettable speech?

Followed by a poorly-written and amateurishly delivered poem?

On the day Obama was supposed to start showing us what he’s got, and giving us some clue as to what all the fuss about him is about?

We’re still waiting. We’ll let you know if we ever see it — and honestly promise to be fair to the new president, the way we tried to be fair to former president George W. Bush. And we truly want Obama to succeed, and definitely want to be blown away by brilliance on an epic scale.

We were waiting for that for eight years…and it looks like we could be waiting for four more, if things continue at this level, on Day One, Year One, of The Golden Age of Obama.

Where were the 5 million people?