When it comes to presidential speechifying, #44, B.H. Obama, though articulate, was a maze of brain-fogging verbiage that you had to scratch your head to even remember to understand.

Other presidents had other résumés and thus expectations placed upon them: FDR, to the silver spoon born, spoke in rounded and professionally polished paragraphs and had the slavish ear of the American public.

Tough Harry S. Truman, a former haberdasher, was a feisty novice but kept up his end of the bargain of being the  president of the premier country in the free world.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, a bona fide decorated 5-star general and hero, did not have to do or say much to be listened to and respected.  He could have burbled The Happy Song through a twisted straw – people respected him by virtue of his achievements in the military and winning WWII.  And though we probably know better, the Ike years were not fraught with danger and international intrigue the way our own time is steeped in dagger-versus-dagger spy-versus-spy folderol.

Hahvahd John F. Kennedy, a Bostonian Brahmin, sounded the role.  He spoke with elegance and panache suitable to his brigand-bootstrap-haulup-cum-patrician family.  You didn't have to yearn for splendid figures of speech when John F. made a presentation.

Texas-born Lyndon Baines Johnson, a good ol' boy from the righteous South, gave a fine homespun drawlin' pitch when and as needed, after Kennedy was shot by Oswald or someone yet to be disclosed (a sop for conspiracists).

Nixon, Richard, a Quaker president of superior intelligence, has been ridiculed for his mannerisms, but insofar as he was a thoughtful and informed speaker, he gave a presidential speech robustness and energy and dynamism.

Gerald Ford, a former footballer, left not much of a lingering impression but became known for his knack of Chevy-Chaselike pratfalls – though the SNL one-termer may have  given us confirmation bias in making more fun of the man than he actually merited, the way Sarah Palin's non-remarks about "seeing Russia from my house" were fictional but immortalized, alas, by Tina Fey.

Ronaldus Magnus, President Ronald Reagan, was an iconic speaker, trained in the lots and the signature celluloid stages of Hollywood.  He spoke clearly, passionately, and made an indelible impact.  Unlike the misconceptions of many, Reagan was a top-flight writer and thinker, and his speeches showcased his own thinking, not the mimicry of a highly paid flack.  His radio talks on a welter of topics were nothing short of prescient, handwritten by a president undervalued while he was in office as something of an amiable duffer.  He was, as we know now, quite the  culmination of the conservative paragon.

Peanut farmer Jimmy Carter, another Southerner, #39, was a bad president insofar as the economy and foreign relations went, but he was no slouch as a scholar.  He gave a genial Georgian talk or five, not embarrassing the country with his lack of erudition, however lacking his hand in dealing with the Middle East and the GDP.

George Herbert Walker Bush, #41, a man of the best résumé of any president, was a solid speaker, having practiced in multiple top-level appointments before he achieved the presidency.

Bubba, yet another southerner, was a Rhodes scholar and quite the orator.  Clinton even today  gives a speech weighted with scholarship, fact, history, and erudition.  He delivered his speeches with flair and emotion and is fondly regarded in no small part today because of his silver tongue.

George Dubya Bush, #43, is plainspoken but never vulgar.  Those who elected him cherished his simply worded but accurate talking moments.  He employed excellent speechwriters, and his more important presentations reflected both his thought and the writers' backroom talent.

And now to the penultimate speechifier: Barack H.Obama.  Well, we know about that guy.  He smoothed his way into the W.H. with little but a paper clip, a magic eraser, a sealed background, and a glibberish patois that descended into vernacular when he was out of the  hallowed orisons of the national media.  But he could, on occasion, of course, dredge up more than bafflegab.  He ascended to the pen and phone by virtue of a set of excellent, emotional, and rhetorical sleight of mouth.  He made a hash of the country, the economy, the world stage, but he sure made a toney café au lait honeyed homily when he needed to wow the groundlings.  Soon parsed into shreds, maybe, but for the moment they were delivered, they did fine.

While too with Donald J. Trump it is a decided treat to instantly grok (1961 Sci-fi  classic by Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger In a Strange Land) what the new president is saying on any and every subject, tweets being exceedingly succinct and swift, one has by now resigned oneself to the occasional flip remark or offhand brief shtik (after-school coursework on humor) but acknowledge reluctantly  and sadly that vaulting eloquence shall ne'er (Shakespeare) be issuing from the mouth of this blue-collar billionaire chief executive.

And although we cannot help but acknowledge his working man's vocabulary, pronunciation, elocution, and syntax, indeed, the many millions who voted for this man over the irksome, prissy over-enunciation of the pancake-affect female and Democrat candidate, the masses before Trump hungered for a champion after their own drinking man's beer barrel, hearts, and Joe Bag-O'-Doughnuts guy-next-door-ism.  Donald J. doesn't, and never will, be swaddled in the golden threads of orblike oratory.

So.  Though we applaud the ease of instant comprehension and ennuyeux iteration of every one of his points, one misses the soaring rhetoric and heretofore usual elegiac speechwriterly effervescence of intoxicant phraseology.

Given the alternative, we chide ourselves, it is still a far, far better thing (A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.  The character nobly chooses to die in place of another.  Lit 2.0.) than what could (shiver, brr) have been, had we not won the prezzy sweepstakes on 9 Nov 2016.