WASHINGTON (AP) — Before Barack Obama, 16 presidents got a second chance at giving an inaugural address for the ages. Most didn't make much of it.
George Washington's remarks the second time around were admirably succinct — only 135 words — but hardly qualified as an address.
Thomas Jefferson, who laid out a masterful brief on democracy at his first oath-taking, spent much of his second complaining that the press was telling lies about him. Ulysses S. Grant also began his second term by grousing that he'd been slandered, although it's unlikely those who had heard his first inaugural were expecting much better.
Abraham Lincoln is the grand exception.
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