"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"John F. Kennedy, inauguration address January 1960"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender"
Winston Churchill, British House of Commons, June 1940 "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance"
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first inaugural address, March 1933"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year, or even one term, but America — I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you: We as a people will get there."
President elect, Barack Obama, November 4, 2008 electoral victory speechExamples of four giants of the spoken word, men with words that offer hope, offer a sense that things are under control, and deliver that elusive quality that we all so desperately seek, leadership.
And then there is Canada’s quartet of wordsmiths, who between the four couldn’t apparently recite the telephone book without a cheater. With Gilles Duceppe off some where grinning like a Cheshire cat, it was left to the three principles of the drama to take to their stages.
Tuesday night’s offerings from the so called leaders of our political parties provided no rallying cry to a cause, not even a sense of anything to stir the hearts of Canadians that we are on the cusp of a new era.
In fact after listening to the ramblings of our elected representatives this Tuesday night, one might actually fear for the nation, looking for leadership and finding a vacuum like at no other time.
First up the Prime Minister, who faced with his gravest political crisis thus far and one that could very well rip the nation to shreds, he delivered what could generously be described as a pedestrian address.
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