Ted Widmer in the American Scholar observes some inaugural weirdness:
Why did John Adams, sailing along smoothly, suddenly embark on an interminable single sentence that took up approximately a quarter of his address and required 732 words to complete? (Yes, I counted.) Why did Martin Van Buren include an exclamation point—the only one in inaugural-address history—after a sentence that was neither funny nor shocking? What inner child in George H. W. Bush forced him to say “freedom is like a beautiful kite that can go higher and higher with the breeze”? Was Warren Harding reading skin-care ads when he urged Americans to free themselves “from the great blotches of distressed poverty”? Why did John F. Kennedy, usually so smart, wonder if “a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion”? What was Nixon thinking when he ripped off Kennedy by saying, “Let each of us ask—not just what will government do for me, but what can I do for myself?” Was Reagan daydreaming of Mitch Miller with his odd paean to “the American Sound”?
This passage from President Bush’s second inaugural always seemed weird to me:
And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well – a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.
Untamed fires are bad, no? “Look out! We’re going to burn everyone with fire!”
