The speech was not a classic but Barack Obama’s address to both Houses of Parliament
covered the bases today. He started with a winning line, remarking that the previous three speakers in Westminster Hall had been the Pope, the Queen and Nelson Mandela which is either “a very
high bar or the beginning of a very funny joke.”
As is traditional in these kinds of speeches, Obama paid tribute to the special relationship, lauding it as the embodiment of the values and beliefs of the English-speaking tradition. He went on to say that both the British and the Americans knew that the “longing for human dignity is universal.” Indeed, at times Obama sounded remarkably like the last president as he proclaimed his own freedom agenda. When he said that the two countries must “stand squarely on the side of those who want to be free” one was reminded of Bush’s second inaugural.
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