THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory -- hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.
And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts....President Barack Hussein Obama, May 1, 2011
HERE is the complete text
A comment on the rhetoric
James Fallows is, as usual, on target in his rhetorical analysis. The statement opens strongly: plainly (see the first two paragraphs, above). There is too much first person (One "I ordered" was enough). Fallows' critique of the closing is correct. The recitation of the pledge of allegiance is dramatically and syntactically perfect: "...who we are...one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." That was the place to say goodnight. Stop, look in the camera, turn and walk back down the corridor of power. Adding "May God bless the United States of America" added a trite element that undercut the drama of the closing.
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