The Burlington Free Press - Jan 21 11:03am
Written by
Joel Banner Baird, Sam Hemingway and Terri Hallenbeck
Free Press Staff Writers

Former Gov. Howard Dean

Former Gov. Howard Dean praised Obama’s second inaugural speech, saying it artfully but precisely spelled out how he intends to lead the country over the next four years.

“It was not just soaring rhetoric,” Dean said. “It was an exact weighing out about why we need to do things differently and then he went on to say what we had to do differently. I thought it was one of the better inaugural speeches I’ve heard.”

Dean, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and was chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2008 when Obama was first elected, said Obama sounded like he planned to be more aggressive pushing his agenda and less willing to compromise with “right-wing” Republicans.

“That was very different from his inaugural, where he was talking about that everybody was going to work together and so on,” Dean said. “I think he means to get things done whether the Republicans want to work with him or not. That’s what I heard in that speech.”

More: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130121/NEWS03/301210013/Dean-praises-Obama-inaugural-speech-calls-one-best-ever