The Greatest Inaugural

William Henry Harrison’s 8,445-word inauguration speech in 1841 is still the longest of its kind, lasting almost two hours, a record sources have told me the 47th President of the United States would very much like to break, since that’s exclusively how he understands the world, through breaking records, even if he did not officially break them and even if the records in question weren’t records in the first place, only to be stymied by the fact that the 47th President of the United States, to quote David Roth, is essentially “a defective Teddy Ruxpin (who) can only hold like 175 words in his head at one time and is just kind of mushing the button that seems most appropriate for the situation over and over again”; you can’t really say strongly and tremendously enough times to get to 8,446 words. He’ll have to drone on for a long time about cultural marxists, and how Today on NBC was better with Deborah Norville, or something. Nevertheless, today the fine folks at Constitution.com graciously provided me a platform to take a controversial position – that William Henry Harrison’s inauguration speech was not just the longest of its kind but when you drill down, which admittedly requires a lot, it is also revealed as the best of its kind. My argument is not as long as Harrison’s address (ha ha!), but I did need more than a few paragraphs to marshal the necessary evidence. You can go here to read my argument in full.