Thursday, July 24, 2008

1. Churchill; 2. Kennedy; 3. Reagan

Yesterday I linked to the first part of a top 25 list of political speeches.  Today 12 - 1.  And the winner is:
1 Winston Churchill, August 20, 1940

At the height of the Battle of Britain, Churchill gave his landmark speech in the House of Commons, paying tribute to the Royal Air Force pilots whose struggle was eventually to win the battle. Churchill’s measured but soaring rhetoric was a source of great inspiration and comfort for a nation under the greatest sustained bombing campaign to date and confronting the prospect of a German invasion.
"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Waiting to see how today's Obama speech in Berlin stacks up.  (Maybe my expectations are way too high.)

UPDATE:  Good speech, well done, he can and will give better.  

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