It was a very Obama speech, I thought. It reminded me of the first time I heard him give a speech live, at the Meadowlands, in New Jersey around this time last year. An Obama speech typically leaves ample opportunity for projection. Hope, change, and cliches you can’t really discuss because they don’t say all that much. I largely thought that of his Mile-High speech over the summer.

I, too was relieved to hear this (though it may contradict the changing-with-the-world bit): “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”