Wednesday, June 01, 2005
The top 100 American speeches of the 20th Century
The same site - American Rhetoric - has a comprehensive set of links to the "rhetoric of 9/11."
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Jun 01, 02:54:00 PM:
This is an interesting list, for sure. It strikes me that Hubert Humphrey's speech at the 1948 Democratic Convention is vastly underrated. Robert Caro, in "Master of the Senate" heralded this speech as one of the best in American political history. My inference was that Caro thought the speech ranked higher than #66, and it took a lot of courage for Humphrey, an outsider in the Senate, to make it and draw the wrath of the Southern Block (led by Richard Russell), but he did it.
The Centrist
By 
Counter Trey, at
Thu Jun 02, 01:21:00 PM:
I find it interesting that four Kennedy brothers speeches, two Barbara Jordan, two FDR, one Cuomo, one LBJ, one Malcom X, and one Jesse Jackson speech (liberal icons all) appear ahead of Reagan's first political speech on the list. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Reagan responsible for the elimination of the greatest threat to the humanity in the twentieth century; a threat that spanned almost the entire century? And, what exactly did Barbara Jordan and Mario Cuomo accomplish for mankind in the twentieth century?
It makes one wonder who created the list.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Jun 02, 01:46:00 PM:
Indeed. As I said, there is a lot to argue about on the list!
By Bren, at
Thu Jun 02, 09:08:00 PM:
They put a period after Harry Truman's middle initial. Oops!
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Jun 02, 09:20:00 PM:
Good technical catch, Brendan. Although I believe I have read that even Truman occasionally put a period after the "S," notwithstanding that there was no actual abbreviation.
