UKH

The speech by President Joe Biden was just awesome.

I’m actually feeling quite positive for America and the world.

To think he used to have a stammer, to deliver a passionate speech like that is just incredible.

President Biden I salute you.

Would love to see the line of law enforcement officers posting subpoena’s through the letterbox at Mar a Lago. Now that muppet is ex president and culpable for all his crimes. 

I gave him a clap.👏🏻

Same

Yep and he's going to have a good team behind him not a load of yes men re the last 4 years.

As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Compared to the last 4 years I doubt his actions could be any worse than the tango man

For me, this is a reaffirmation that your vote counts, that we can vote out the bad and inept.  To not vote allows in the grumps of the future.  It’s not perfect but let’s cherish that democratic right.

Sent shivers down my spine. Like being transported back to a previous age. The unexpected effect of Trump who makes any reasonable-sounding orator sound like Kennedy/King/Ghandi rolled into one.

The speech wasn't too polished or delivered with such slick smoothness as make one doubt the speaker's sincerity. Biden does stumble. Hopefully he can deliver but if he's hobbled by circumstances - Covid or other  - and/or loses the House /Senate in a couple of years, then he could go the way of Obama. 

But think about 2024. The presumptive nominee Harris versus the still-raging rump of Trumpist support. How tempting it might for Biden be to tack to the centre / pander to the far Right for unity at the expense of the American progressive Left. But his speech more than nodded to tackling racial injustice so maybe not. 

American high politics: rarely dull.

Yep. 

Finally some class back in the office.

It was amazing to hear him speak in sentences!

He's very old. You have to feel sorry for him. Kamala Harris on the other hand looks well up for it. O think the GOP will struggle to find someone to take her on. 

Thing is had Trump just shut up he'd have possibly won. The economy was going well. He just seemed to thrive on pissing people off with often small policies purely to play to his base. But he handled Covid so badly it killed him, I think he just gambled on it not getting out of control.

Indeed, it's now the 12th new presidents speech I've heard. They all promise a lot but history decides whether they delivered.

I'm not sure. I think it could well swing back in 2024. 

Biden/Harris have to get the progressives on board, this time just not being Trump gave the Dems unity they lacked in 2016.

Saying that if Trump does launch the Patriot Party - and it'd be a money spinner - it could all be over and the Dems walk 2024.

John Crace writing in the Guardian about a lacklustre Prime Minister's question time today:

I thought Biden's speech was good. I thought Amanda Gorman was amazing!

Just about to write that. The old cynic in me had the trigger finger ready to switch off the telly for a "youth poet laureate", but I am glad I did not.

I did switch off, though, for priest afterwards, and cunningly went to the loo for Garth Brooks just before!

CB

I thought the priest was good.

The content was striking.

Obama's speech was memorable for what he said to the world, "I offer my hand if you will unclench your first". Biden's speech was much more domestic, eloquently telling Americans they had to calm down and listen to their opponents.

In between we had Trump's speech. George W Bush made a remark as it ended which lip readers understood to be "that was some weird shit".

You do realise speeches are bull and Biden is famously an old perv? 

I can't watch the religious stuff so I turned that off. Some sway into the American exceptionalism which is awful. Almost like the US has a special God given role in the world and it's just better than other nations.

I was dubious too, but I thought he struck the right note.

Lady Gaga stole the show though!

And to think we could have had Trump again.

And go for  the people he pardoned. Do I understand this correctly, can the president basically overrule the legal process, a la Bannon, and prevent those due to stand trial ever facing a jury whilst freeing those already doing time?

I’m sorry, my New Years resolution is not to argue with idiots. I’ve no proof that you are but I’m not taking the risk.

Have a good day

It's probably best for the Republicans if their senators vote against Trump in the impeachment so he can't hold public office again, so he won't start a new party to split their vote.

I would not know, I had switched off.

I cannot stand the American infatuation with religion, both content and style wise.

Praying before a sports competition, FFS...

CB

Yes, but only at the federal level.

I want to see what state prosecutors, in particular in New York and Georgia, have to say on Trump and his henchmen.

CB

Her words were fine and apt and inspiring, but I cannot stand her voice, sadly. Perhaps she needs a voice coach.... (Ducks the hail of critical comments).

I'll draw some of the fire by venturing to suggest that Biden's speech was ever so slightly rambling.

Agreed I couldn't help but watch it despite planning to change the channel.

Then again, I suppose when you've spent a good chunk of your career stood next to one of the best orators in modern times (i.e. Obama) and are following on from you-know- who he kinda needed to pull it out the bag....

I like hearing him and watching him talk. It's impressive to see how he fights his stutter to this day, he can disguise it well.

I teach a few kids with stutters and it really affects their confidence. 

They've a tough line to tread between unity and accountability. They can't let those who organized last week get away with what they did.

Whilst I agree, words damage. 

Trump actually did some good but his words often undercut him. Had he just shut up and done most of his work he'd have won. he seemed to go out intent on hurting people, fighting people, "making liberals cry" seemed to be his aim. 

Yet he didn't cause any new wars, tried to get troops back, the economy was going well. If he'd have kept to that he'd have won. Even building a border isn't a bad thing it's the rhetoric that went along with that which killed his presidency - and then obviously his horrific mismanagement of COVID. I think he gambled on another SARS when it miraculously disappeared.

Yes I like that "human" side to his delivery as well. I just felt the speech seemed to go round in circles a bit, saying the same things several times. I think it could have come across more powerfully if it had been condensed to half the length with more of a structure to it. Individually bits of it were great, but I thought, for instance, that he was far more effective when he spoke after the Capitol riot.

Yes, it was a very fine speech, but slightly too many words at the end and a bit repetitive. 

I too caught Amanda Gorman's speech, and like everyone else was wondering who the hell is this? But after listening to what she had to say she won't be unknown any longer. Amazing perception and depth for one so young. But a mature head on young shoulders, and delivered with such eloquence and poise, with no sign of nerves. It's difficult to believe that she once had a speech impediment. and we have bumbling Boris, educated at Eton and Oxford!