COMPARISON AND CONTRAST

Comparison and Contrast



Comparison and Contrast

Introduction

Analyzing and comparing political speeches of the most influential political personalities on Earth is a valuable exercise for students of political sciences. In the history of United States, two of the most influential political personalities are Abraham Lincoln and Barrack Obama. Lincoln is 'influential' and special in the sense that he laid some solid foundations for our country. Likewise, Obama is influential and special in the sense that he is the first Black president of the United States, and that he took the presidential seat on a time when the America was hit the century's worst financial crisis. This paper compares and analyzes the political speeches of these two important personalities.

Thesis Statement:

In speeches, political leaders use proven motivation and inspirational words of leaders of the past.

James Wood Story: Victory Speech

James Wood provides an analytical story about Obama's post 2008 Victory Speech. In doing so, he summarizes the key parts of the speech covering the critical speech aspects like tone, content, audience grasp, and maturity etc. With the amount of truth, emotion and sense in the speech, Wood comprehensively evaluates whether the popular perception regarding Obama to be 'a man of words' was contained and justified. Wood could find the typical 'union' theme throughout the speech (Wood 2008). As any popular victory speech would have, Obama's speech rejuvenated accomplishments of founders of American dream 'ghosts' (Obama 2007). Wood seems this inclusion to be used to the amount of exaggeration. Leaving the accomplishments of the past government unnoticed, Wood believes that the former government was depicted as a civil war manager in Obama's speech. These 'wounds,' Wood calls, 'were bound' by committing to co-exist under the diversities within the United States (like race, culture, goals, color, language, economic status).

While Obama noted the hallmarks of American achievements in the distant past, he failed to acknowledge the not-so-worthy achievements of the recent past. In Wood's view, this was typical novelist approach to radically entice a readers (audience) interest. Moving further, Obama vowed to excel as much as American founders. His 'Yes we can,' philosophy, in Wood's view, was nothing more than a motivational vitamin used by many public speakers (Wood 2008). Committing the level of success of the founders like Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Wood sees, is nothing more than an illusion. Wood also feels some close similarities of Obama's words (promises) ...