Obama’s second inaugural offers chance to assert his legitimacy both as president and American
As Barak Obama prepares for his second inaugural address on Jan. 21, he faces a nation still bitterly divided over his “legitimacy,” suggests Wayne Fields, PhD, an expert on the history of presidential rhetoric and speechmaking at Washington University in St. Louis. “Obama will offer his inaugural address to a nation in which a large and vocal percentage of the population are not just disappointed, but almost furious, that he’s been re-elected,” Fields says.