florid speech
This will be Florida's greatest century. This will be Florida's greatest century! Second best is no longer acceptable. This will be the time when we take our rightful place not near the top, but at the top. My friends, with your help, Florida will stand before the world as a shining symbol of all that can be achieved.
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We also need to make sure that the nation, the world, knows that Florida is open for business. There is no better place in the world to work, to live and to raise a family than our Florida. After we conclude this legislative session this spring, I will lead Florida on the first of many trade missions. We will start with a trip to Israel.
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Who among us doesn't believe that our students deserve to be ranked among the very best? Who among us doesn't believe that in that global society will require them to be prepared to compete against Europeans, Chinese, Indians in this century? Who among us doesn't believe we can do better -- that we must do better -- if we are to fulfill our destiny as a state?Inaugural address of Charlie Crist, succeeding Jeb Bush as governor of Florida.
Who among us doesn't believe that familial rhetoric of this ilk, with its suggestive deployments of triumph and survivalism, flows from the European rhetoric of the gentes (see Vico and his offspring.) -- the idea that peoples, states, have encoded in their genesis a self-evident unifying bundle of
The speech is being acclaimed as one of the greatest political orations ever delivered on USian soil. Who among us doesn't believe this? Florida Public Radio found numerous "commentators" to assure us of the truth of this. Check out the first 10 or so minutes of the broadcast.
posted by Tom Matrullo at Saturday, January 06, 2007
2 Comments:
I have a hard time believing anyone would have the gall to call that one of the best speeches ever in the U.S - it is second rate even compared to, say, the juvenilia of Sylvester Stallone. I did like the high flown rhetoric, closing with the suggestion of a junket to Israel - followed no doubt by one to Tahiti, so we can compete, but also frolic, with our Polynesian competitors as this great century rolls along, even unto, I would dare to say, as so many have feared in the past, a full hundred years. I would also advice against, oh great state of Florida, taking any wooden nickles, or not changing your underwear just in case you are involved in a major accident and are discovered unconscious.
I'm not sure the chemistry in question involved gall, Roger. More likely it has to do with a mixture of small state capital town violations of incest taboos, brotherly love beyond the golden rule, a vision of the world crafted in Florida classrooms where, right after God rests, certain smarmy developers reinvent paradise for retiring GM workers, organ grinder training from the time of diapers, mint juleps, and various afflictions worthy of X-Files documentation. Exhibit.
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