Having just listened to the speech, I think there was a lot to like there for those whose greatest concern is that Obama is soft — that he doesn’t appreciate the role violence has played in forging our democracy. Dianne Feinstein opened the ceremony by talking about how the ballot is more powerful than the bullet, how non-violence has made this day possible. It’s a bizarre revision of American history that focuses on Martin Luther King rather than William Tecumseh Sherman or George Washington. It was the violence inflicted against British, Confederate, and German troops that made possible the inauguration of an African-American. Obama’s speech acknowledged as much:

Obama closed by conjuring the image of Washington crossing the Delaware:

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