we were talking about great baseball history in this area. this speech is so amazing. i remember seeing this as a kid thinking that may be one of the greatest speeches of all time and yet he was not a speech giver. there is probably only a couple of recordings of lou gehrig s voice. when do you ever hear lou gehrig. there was no post-game radio interviews. people in the stands that day were really, many of them were hearing lou gehrig for the first time. he could have hired the best speech writers of his time or of our time and they could not have done better than that speech. why do you think it was so powerful? it was one man who knew if he didn t know he was going to die, he might have been hopeful he knew what the prognosis of a.l.s. was and that it was going to be a debilitating disease for which there was no cure and yet he stood in front of 62,000 people behind those microphones, which was a rare thing for him, and basically said he was the luckiest man on the
theme. are establishment republicans worried? i think that the war on women frame the democrats used in the last election where it was arguments about abortion and contraception and so on is less likely to be important in this campaign because kentucky is a pretty socially conservative state and grimes is more likely to be on the defensive on issues like abortion. i think the gender card more generally is clearly something mcconnell is worried about. if you listen to his speech, which he didn t come out to katy perry and he s not necessarily the most charismatic speech giver but there was a lot of talk about women, about his wife, about his family and women in kentucky hurt by obamacare. i don t think there s any question from his perspective being not just an establishment figure but an older white guy facing, you know, attractive dynamic younger female
can overcome the cynicism that people bring toward washington. there s not a proposal. not as though he just finds the right set of words to say it, all of a sudden people win. it s a process. i think the white house hopes that process starts tonight. i would argue we went back here at the post and the most memorable impactful state of the unions and most recent one we found was george w. bush, so 2002, when he laid out the axis of evil. these are not typically speeches even for someone who is quite gifted like a speech giver like barack obama, go ahead. let me challenge you on that. that speech arguably turned this country in a direction on foreign policy i know tonight will not be about foreign policy and traditionally it s not. but those words, axis of evil and i was standing here in congress, i called the control
campaign trail. no. he s a better campaigner. but some day when you have the collected speeches of barack obama you re going to look at the power of his nobel speech or cairo speech and may look better in this regard. i still think he s a better speech giver than most presidents. better than nixon or linden johnson or jimmy carter. that s not a high standard. michael, i was going to say a low bar. stop. [ inaudible ]. i think he s in a middle range of using oratory and at times can deliver a lhell of a speech. he can. for a guy so inspiring, seems to be other times where he seems to fall flat. i will be quiet now as the republican and let you talk about it. i think there s the disconnect between obama the campaigner and obama the president. you may have just i think the 2004 convention speech gave people the impression that he was this
why they put out ambassador rice to say something false. believe me, president obama knows. he just went say. that s what s going to bring him down. he s got to start to level with the folks. martha: you studied history and a lot about the presidency and leadership and lincoln and kennedy. this president is never running for office again. he has a lot piled up on him at this moment. he could try to rights above it and show leadership, he could say things have happened on my watch that i m not happy about but i m going to turn this ship around. where is that speech? the great speech giver is in need of a great speech. it s beyond a speech. i think he has to go out there and tell everybody what happened in benghazi, then he has to tell everybody with happened at the irs. then he has to tell us why the