Larry J. Sabato Professor of Politics, University of Virginia :
During Christmastime I took a day to read all the past inaugural addresses. It was worth it just to find out how unmemorable the vast majority were. Most Presidents have wasted their inaugurals with warmed over campaign boilerplate, too much detail about transient issues, and flowery rhetoric filled with stale allusions to the Greeks and the Romans. The only inaugural addresses worth recalling are Washington's second (for its marvelous brevity), Jefferson's first, Lincoln's second, FDR's first, and--the gold standard--John F. Kennedy's. (If you're a history buff, you might enjoy this essay.
Obama's inaugural is so freighted with significance that it will always be remembered even if the speech is pedestrian. But given Obama's powerful delivery, he can rival JFK if he avoids leaden specificity (that's what the State of the Union is for) and gives people timely commentary in a form that is timeless. Most of JFK's speech is completely relevant forty-eight years later. Obama may inevitably cite Lincoln and Martin Luther King (and FDR and JFK), but the speech must be his. He's not the second Lincoln or King or Roosevelt or Kennedy; he's the first Obama. And while he won't mention Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford, we'll probably get a repeat of the congratulations for a terrific transition. It's true, it's feel-good bipartisan, and it's a sure-fire applause line. In 1977 Carter's salute to Ford generated the the most enthusiastic ovation of the afternoon.