Insight Into Obama's Inaugural Speech

Thomas Jefferson's Inaugural Speech

CNBC: HARWOOD: When you deliver your speech on January 20th, do you see yourself as having the same task of reassurance for the American people? And how do you balance that with the need to convey the urgency of doing so?

Pres.-elect OBAMA: Well...(unintelligible)...if you look--as you might imagine, I've been reading inaugural speeches lately, and if you look at FDR's first speech, the line that's remembered is "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." But actually the bulk of the speech centered around the need to act and act now. And he explained, I think, the nature of the crisis, both in his inaugural speech and subsequent fireside chats, as well as anybody. This is a bit of advice that I received from one of the former presidents. He said, `Part of the reason, Barack, that you're doing well right now is because you don't talk down to the American people, you play it straight and just explain what it is that's taking place.' And I think that--I have such confidence in the American people. If you just play it straight with them, if you explain to them, here's our challenge, here's how we've gotten here and here's where I think we need to go, then I have enormous confidence that the American people will rise up to the challenge. So my job, both in the inauguration speech and in the months to come, is simply to explain as honestly and truthfully as possible what the circumstances are, what the best ideas are that are out there in terms of meeting those challenges, and if I do that, I feel confident that we'll come together to solve these problems.