Alternate Presidential Speeches

[wormyguy]

A thread for these. Set the scene, the give the speech!

November 7, 1967:

The occupants of the Oval Office were in a hushed silence, huddled around a small television screen, specially wheeled in for the occasion. They were joined by hundreds of millions all around the world. The montage they were watching was a rather odd one – views of schoolchildren all over the world watching the same thing. Children in Moscow, in Warsaw, in Berlin (both halves), in Tokyo, in Beijing, in Havana, in Chicago, in Cairo, and in Pretoria. The feed then cut back to the moon, as the hysterical announcer interspersed his English translation of the space-to-ground communications with grandiose pronouncements of how this great triumph of science on the fiftieth anniversary of the glorious October Revolution would ensure world peace for all the generations to come. The image cut to a camera inside the lander as Gagarin guided it to a smooth landing on the lunar surface. “Fuck!” yelled the President, “why couldn’t he have crashed?” Gagarin popped open the door, as Leonov filmed him. The first man in space would be the first man to walk on the moon.

“This is not a step for a man. This is not a step for Socialism. This is a step for peace.”

It was three o’clock when the President read his prepared statement. Brezhnev’s speech had lasted nearly 2 hours, and he worried that people might have turned off their televisions.

“Good afternoon. I am always amazed by the tenacity of man. There is no challenge, no scientific question that cannot be resolved through the effort of our best and brightest scientists. I am pleased that our nation has some of the best and brightest among our community of mankind, and I am no less pleased that any other nation shares in the power of scientific discovery and exploration. On this day, we have witnessed a giant leap forward in the field of the exploration of outer space. I have telephoned Mr. Brezhnev and congratulated him on his nation’s impressive achievement. I congratulate the Soviet people, the Soviet Cosmonauts, and most of all, the unsung heroes, the Soviet scientists who made this event possible.

I would like to emphasize that this is not a competition, but merely a challenge. We must challenge ourselves to do even better, to go even further in the field of space exploration than we ever have before. We remain committed as a nation to the peaceful exploration of space. We, too, shall reach for the stars. We, too, shall travel to the moon, to Mars, to the furthest reaches of man’s imagination. Let this be a first step to a new millennium of peace and prosperity for our nation, and for all others.”

[President Al Bundy]

If you want to switch with one person on this, you wouldn't probably want to change with the President of the United States. After all, he is leading his country through a world war with the Warsaw Pact. Although NATO troops could push Soviet troops almost to the Soviet border, the Soviets still have nuclear weapons. And they used one of them on Philadelphia. What the president had now to proclaim a huge step towards the very end of the world. He had called for broadcast time on all major TV networks around the western world.

"My fellow Americans and my fellow people in our allied countries around the world. Today a striking blow had been set against us, after a missile from the USSR destroyed Philadelphia. Of course, our prayers are with the victims, and with the survivors. My message to Premier Chikatilo and the government of the Soviet Union is, that you're action will not be left unpunished. After consulting with our allies, I have authorised the permission for a retaliation strike. Soon they will see our revenge, the revenge of the people of Philadelphia, the revenge of all free people of the world. You took this war into this level, and now you have to bear with it. May god have mercy with their and our souls. Thank you, and god bless you."

After President Richard Nixon delivered his speech, nuclear bombs exploded over several Soviet cities, including Moscow, Leningrad, Volgograd, Vladivostok, Kiev, Minsk and several others.

[theReturner]

So, are we writing our own speech, or do we keep writing the speeches of others?

[RogueBeaver]

"My fellow citizens, I am pleased to announce that this fiscal year, 1973, the economy grew by an average of 5.6%, with 6% growth projected for FY 1974. This is not an accident, but the result of the policies which this Administration has followed since its beginning three years ago. The budget has been balanced, with a surplus estimated at $320 million projected by 1975. Our national debt is being steadily reduced, and America is enjoying prosperity for all, while the poverty rate has been reduced to under 5%. On this basis, I am asking you to vote the straight Democratic ticket in November."

- Democratic campaign address by President Kennedy, Sept. 8, 1972

[thatsmartguy]

Why am I not surprised that RB did a Pres. RFK speech?

[RogueBeaver]

That's actually Clinton's FY 1997 budget with a different time stamp. A DLC Democrat such as RFK or Clinton in the White House and a Republican-SoDem Congress work wonders for the US economy.

[wormyguy]

It's interesting that the most prosperous and successful years in American seem to be ones in which the Presidency and Congress are controlled by different parties . . .

[RogueBeaver]

wormyguy: No one gets the opportunity to go on ideological power trips.

[Al-Buraq]

November 8 1962
An even more haggard than usual Richard Nixon stumped onto the stage at the Beverley Hilton Hotel. He glowered at the assembled pressmen and spoke in the whining, injued tones of the loser.
"Today, November the 8th 1962, is a day that when the press corps proved that they had it in for me....."

[The Kiat]

The presidential speeches from Sam and Max after Max becomes president.

[mailinutile2]

"We Surrender"

George Washington, 1780

[jmberry]

"My fellow Americans, members of Congress, distinguished representatives of the press, it is with a heavy heart that I deliver this to you. By now you have heard the reports. At approximately 0700 hours Greenwich time, a blast of uranium was detected in Italian Libya. It is a most distressing day that that evil empire, the German Third Reich, has joined the nuclear club. And yet, they presume that simply having an atomic bomb will be enough to bully the world to follow them. Thus, I say to Chancellor Heydrich, we are not a nation to push around. The United States will not stand to threats from thugs and lunatics. The war will continue, and we will break the Reich. Thank you, and God bless America."

- Televised Address from President Landon, October 3rd, 1944

[mailinutile2]

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.

All we asked was to be let alone.

We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live.

The world forever remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us, the living, to stand here, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that our nation, our free new nation, shall never again been cowed in submission by an envious power, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America