By what standard this presidential inaugural needs to be...

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...compared. In 2001 George W. Bush stole, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" from the 1961 Kennedy inaugural speech and made it "What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort; to defend needed reforms against easy attacks; to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor." It's time to hold shrub accountable and make sure when he uses someone else's material he does claim it as his own. I believe Thurston Clark's editorial piece in today's NYT places the bar to that high standard for all politicians.

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January 15, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR - NYT
Ask How
By THURSTON CLARKE

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Kennedy had a strong emotional connection with the passages inspired by his own experiences. Throughout his political career he had sometimes choked up at Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies when speaking about those who had lost their lives in World War II. Among the passages he had dictated on the flight was this one: "Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe."

Numbered among these young Americans, of course, were his brother Joseph Kennedy Jr., his brother-in-law Billy Hartington, and his PT-109 crewmen Andrew Kirksey and Harold Marney. These two sentences, a tribute to their sacrifices, would prove to be the emotional turning point of his inaugural, the moment when his voice assumed a passion he seldom revealed, inspiring the audience at the Capitol, touching even the hearts of his opponents, and, according to accounts from the time, sending half-frozen tears rolling down cheeks.

It is possible that a future president will evoke a similar reaction with an inaugural address, uniting Americans in a common purpose, and opening a new era of idealism, optimism and national happiness. But to accomplish this, he must do more than others have done: simply paraphrase or echo Kennedy. Instead, he will have to deliver an inaugural that so clearly engages his emotions, and so convincingly represents a distillation of the spiritual and philosophical principles guiding his life, that it will, in the end, awaken a deep emotional response from the American people, too.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/15/opinion/15clarke.html?oref=login&th

As for John F Kennedy's inaugural speech, you can find the text version here:

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html

And the audio of that speech can be found here (Real Player download available):

http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_158.html

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1. A link to the Top 100 Speeches made by Americans...

<link> http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html