Mike Hudack is a tumblelog.

Obama As The New Cicero

unicornology:

srsly:

obamaccounting:

csmccann:

claytoncubitt:

“Here’s the thing: to understand the next four years of American politics, you are going to need to understand something of the politics of ancient Greece and Rome.”

“His best speeches are adroit literary creations, rich, like those doric columns, with allusion, his turn of phrase consciously evoking lines by Lincoln and King, by Woody Guthrie and Sam Cooke. Though he has speechwriters, he does much of the work himself. (Jon Favreau, the 27-year-old who heads Obama’s speechwriting team, has said that his job is like being “Ted Williams’s batting coach.”) James Wood, professor of the practice of literary criticism at Harvard, has already performed a close-reading exercise on the victory speech for the New Yorker. Can you imagine the same being done of a George Bush speech?”