Thread by @gtconway3d

“[I]t was ... a poorly written speech: a long, cliché-plagued, rambling trip through American history that tried to name-check battles and famous people as applause lines.”

https://twitter.com/radiofreetom/status/1147114956690776065

“[I]t was flat and labored ... a challenging speech to deliver even for a better speaker, and Trump, who hates reading from prepared remarks, plodded through it with a ... detached presence and a ... mushy enunciation, including a weird blip where he ...”
bit.ly/2JvXjmu

“... referred to the glorious military capture of some airports in colonial America.“
“[But] [t]he speech ... was not the problem. Its content will be forgotten—except ... by students of speechwriting, who might use it as an example of what to avoid ....”
bit.ly/2JvXjmu

“On another level, however, the speech was indeed offensive. Not only did it attempt to militarize our most sacred national holiday, but Trump tried to bathe himself in borrowed legitimacy from a military that was forced to march, sing and fly for him.”
bit.ly/2JvXjmu

“Mining the glories of past military battles while flanked by defense chiefs is the kind of thing Soviet leaders used to do while droning from their reviewing stand in Moscow. It wasn’t patriotic or stirring; it was cringe-inducing.”
bit.ly/2JvXjmu

“This is probably one of many reasons that former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and former Chief of Staff John Kelly — both retired generals — reportedly squashed this idea whenever it came up. The ‘Salute to America,’ in the end, was a miniature ...”
bit.ly/2JvXjmu

“... military review, held as a partisan exercise for an insecure president who thirsts for legitimacy as a military hero.”
Everything around it, however, from beginning to end, was an offense to the traditions of our republic and our Constitution.”
bit.ly/2JvXjmu