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JFK, FDR, and the Secret History of How a Great Inaugural Address Is Written

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Hey, if u think u can do better, go for it. The prez is existent to help give a feeling if faith and trust in the country, something you two obviously don't have... Oh and by the way, those sound bite don't only sound like rhetoric, they ARE! The point of rhetoric is to press a point, and to inspire the audience. So lay off.

Jazz of MI 8:44AM February 03, 2009

say just about anything - as long as it was ambiguous, facile, warm, fuzzy and comforting and the throngs of swaying, zombie-eyed Obamatrons would read some eternal, meaning of profundity into it.
I too have faith... Faith that this comment will not be listed under U.S. News and World Report's, "Reader Comment of the Day".

R.L. Schaefer of CA 11:59AM January 19, 2009

When a good speaker gets before a mob of adoring sycophants, fans, and groupies and voices a sound bite in a dramatic manner, they seem to go crazy over anything that mimics high rhetoric.
What do these two sound bites actually mean?
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country"
Sounds sort of communistic or monarchal to me, systems in which the people are subservient to the state and serve the state or monarch. Was Kennedy saying he was sort of a monarch and the people should serve him? I thought our democratically elected representatives were supposed to serve the people, not vice versa.
"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"
Or a cynical Roosevelt sending you off to die in Europe's wars, or a depression remaining unaffected by his famous sound bite, or Roosevelt packing the Supreme Courts to negate our system of checks and balances, or a megalomaniac ignoring the great George Washington's precedent of only running for two terms.

Luther of IL 5:51PM January 15, 2009