GUY RAZ, Host:
We're back with ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
BARACK OBAMA: As business resumes, I look forward to working together in that same spirit of common cause with members of Congress from both parties, because before we are Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans.
RAZ: Jim, it's great to have you here.
JAMES FALLOWS: Hello, Guy. Nice to talk to you.
RAZ: Now, Jim, we just heard from President Obama a moment ago picking up on his theme of civility. I know you and many of us watched that speech in Tucson this past week, a speech that may just be remembered as his most memorable.
FALLOWS: I think so. And I am biased as a one-time speechwriter myself that I've been thinking a lot about speeches this week. We are nearing the 50th anniversary of two very important speeches in American history: President Eisenhower's farewell address about the Military Industrial Complex and then John Kennedy's inaugural address right after that.
RAZ: And, Jim, we'll be talking more about Eisenhower's speech on the program tomorrow.
FALLOWS: And I think the ones we heard this week, President Obama's Tucson speech, the ideas in it were not so novel, we should be nicer to each other. It was the tone that made a difference.
RAZ: Jim, I was struck by how many of President Obama's usual detractors praised the speech, and many of Sarah Palin's staunch supporters seemed a bit uncomfortable with hers.
FALLOWS: In contrast, we had Sarah Palin who had a much more defensive tone about who should be blamed and then who should not be blamed for these terrible events. And I thought that speaking entirely analytically, not supporting one side or the other here, I had the sense that I was watching a moment very much like the moment in which Edmund Muskie was crying on the New Hampshire campaign trail in 1972 or when Howard Dean had his scream moment...
RAZ: Scream moment.
FALLOWS: And in all of those cases, fairly or unfairly, that moment sort of crystallized a change in that candidate's prospects. And my guess is, we won't know this for a while, but I think people will look back on that speech by Sarah Palin and its juxtaposition in contrast in tone with a speech later that evening by President Obama and saying - because that was the time when her prospects changed. Whether or not she ever had a serious chance of winning the presidency, I think we have seen something like a Howard Dean moment in that speech.
RAZ: Jim, thank you.
FALLOWS: Thank you, Guy.