Speech

WASHINGTON -- The most appreciative audience for State of the Union addresses is usually found here in the capital, where everyone loves ritual and ceremony. Most of the voters elsewhere understand they are just speeches unlikely to change their lives.But President Clinton's speech Tuesday to a joint session of Congress and a national television audience has an unusual political dimension because, once again, he needs to focus attention on his agenda and away from debilitating distractions.

THAT WAS A marvelous speech President Bush made last week as he took the oath office for a second term. Truly marvelous. It was so grand I can still hear freedom ringing in my ears. Why the oppressed and suppressed people of the world did not rise up, throw off their shackles and depose the tyrants who rule them is beyond me. Could it be because the people whose tyrant was last overthrown - the people of Iraq, that is - are still reeling from the consequences? Or could it be that we have a credibility problem when it comes to people who are ruled by "leaders of governments with long habits of control," as the president put it?

People around town are still talking about Dick Vitale's speech the other night at the 43rd annual McCormick Unsung Hero banquet.There aren't many Dick Vitales in this world, and there's no one who puts more energy into a speech. That's one reason his standard fee is $18,000.Paul Baker, known to some as Baltimore's basketball guru, was so impressed that yesterday he sat down and wrote Vitale."The speech was magnificent," Baker wrote. "Your inner self shines through. That's what made it."Vitale's message was a good one for an audience of high school athletes, parents and coaches.

OK, so it wasn't Parris when he sizzles. The sky was drippy, and the crowd was chilly and wet, and Parris Glendening's inaugural speech had all the daring you might expect of a guy who lost 21 out of 24 jurisdictions and doesn't want to offend anybody else.If you wanted pizazz yesterday, you had to pick your spots. There was a 21-gun salute, which sounded like a firing squad taking out Ellen Sauerbrey. There was Harry Hughes telling the crowd, "I'd like to recount the ways I like Parris, but I fear the word 'recount' has gone out of fashion."

BEIJING -- Yesterday must have been satisfying for much-criticized Chinese Premier Li Peng.The Soviet-trained bureaucrat's state-of-the-nation speech -- opening the annual meeting of China's rubber-stamp legislature -- was a flat, nuts-and-bolts rendition of Chinese patriarch Deng Xiaoping's push for capitalist-style economic reforms.As long expected, the premier called for expanding the role of free markets in the Chinese economy, streamlining government and separating it further from the management of enterprises -- all to accelerate China's already torrid pace of development.

Boston -- Louis Farrakhan, the Islamic minister who angered many women when he barred them from attending a speech here last winter, returned on Wednesday night and delivered a speech that only women could attend.Mr. Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, faces sexual discrimination complaints filed with a state agency because women were kept from the city-owned theater where he delivered the speech on March 10.He told a thousand women packed into a stifling church on Wednesday night that the complaints against him were just another attempt by critics to silence his message.

DENVER -- Lawyers for two men charged with illegally ejecting two people from a speech by President Bush say that the president's staff can lawfully remove anyone who expresses views different from his. Lawyers for the two men, Michael Casper and Jay Klinkerman, said that they were working as organizers for a public presidential forum on Social Security at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver on March 21, 2005, when they were involved...

THOSE WHO would discourage or suppress debate have determined that this is a Good War. They do not want to hear anyone say, "No, it isn't," or even, "No, it may not be." If we're fighting a Good War, they reason, then no one should protest it.These critics, among them our colleague Kenneth Lasson (Other Voices, Jan. 25), have misunderstood the purpose and importance of free speech. Whether one considers this war just nor not, the need to air our differences and challenge the wisdom of the "majority" remains constant.

President Barack Obama's plans to speak directly to the nation's students Tuesday have sparked a dispute among area parents and politicians, with some expressing concerns that the president could use the speech to promote his agenda - and others calling it a valuable classroom lesson. School systems have been inundated with phone calls this week from both sides. Most Baltimore-area districts are letting individual schools determine whether they will show the noon speech, which the White House says will call for students to take responsibility for their education.

A stitched mouth didn't stop 16-year-old Kerri Ruttenberg of Columbia from winning the American Legion's National Oratorical Contest and collecting $21,500 in scholarship money last week.Ruttenberg, a junior at Hammond High School, is Maryland's first female winner of the national speech contest."I can't describe what it was like," she said after returning from Friday's finals in Baton Rouge, La. "It took a while for it to sinkin. Obviously, I was thrilled."Ruttenberg, one of two juniors competing, defeated high school seniors from across the continental United States, France, Germany and Puerto Rico to win the scholarship money, a large plaque and several medals.