The speech has been subjected to instant analysis and placed in proper historical context by, among others, Andrea Mitchell who thought it recalled Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” masterpiece. Others saw it as a call to arms for the progressive agenda. And so forth.

Worth remembering is the fact that it was just a speech and no matter how stirring the cadences – if, indeed, you found them stirring – it will be forgotten at best and mocked at worst if the second term does not deliver.  Churchill’s speeches are remembered and quoted because the Brits (with, eventually, a little help from their friends) were winners.  “Fight them on the beache” would have been tossed in the dustbin of history if the Germans had managed to get across the Channel and occupied the British Isles.  “So much been owed by so many to so few,” would not still resonate if the Luftwaffe had prevailed.