Highlights from Noonan's column:
"This is what Mr. Obama said:
"In a time when all wonder if our nation's best days are behind us, we need to know that the answer is no. We continue. We go on. This is not journey's end.
"That, I think, is what the-18 minute speech came down to. Are we in a difficult moment? Yes, it is a time of "gathering clouds and raging storms." There is "a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights." We face great challenges, but "know this, Americathey will be met." How? We will meet them by being who we are. Our success depends on the American "values" of "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism." He said, "These things are old. These things are true." Like those who've long fought in our armed forces, Americans have shown "a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves."
"It was a moderate speech both in tone and content, a serious and solid speech. The young Democrat often used language with which traditional Republicans would be thoroughly at home: The American story has never been one of "shortcuts or settling for less," the journey "has not been . . . for the faintheartedfor those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasure of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things" who have created the best of our enduring history.
"Obama named in stark terms America's essential foe: "For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror . . . we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." This had the authentic sound of a man who's been getting daily raw intelligence briefings and is not amused.
"It was not an especially moving or rousing speech, but the event itself, the first major address of a new president from a new generation and a previously unrepresented race, was inherently moving. The speech was low-key, sober. There was not a sentence or thought that hit you in the chest and entered your head not to leave. But it was worthy, had weight, and was adult. In fact, Mr. Obama lauded a certain kind of maturity: "In the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things." This was a call for a new nobility that puts aside "petty grievances and false promises" that have marked the oral culture of our modern political life. He seemed to be saying that the old, pointless partisanship of the past does not fit the current moment."
She ended her column by sayinig:
"I don't know what the networks will use as the sound bite, that rather ugly word, now some 35 years old, that speaks of the short piece of audio- or videotape they will use to show the highlight of the speech, or capture its essence. This is not all bad. When a speech is so calm and cool that you have to read it to absorb it fully, the speech just may get read.
This was not the sound of candidate Barack Obama but President Obama, not the sound of the man who appealed to the left wing of his party but one attempting to appeal to the center of the nation. It was not a joyous, audacious document, not a call to arms, but a reasoned statement by a Young Sobersides."
