WASHINGTON (CNN)  -- Barack Obama, who shot from obscurity to fame based on a single speech and then captured the White House in a campaign marked by soaring rhetoric, delivered a restrained, sober inaugural address Tuesday. American patriot Thomas Paine seems to have informed some of the spirit of President Obama's inaugural speech. Gone was the mantra-like "Yes we can" chanted by supporters, which Obama invoked as a refrain right through his victory speech on Election Night. Largely absent, too, were citations from the two historical figures on whose shoulders Obama stood Tuesday -- Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., both of whom he quoted on the night of his triumph in November.
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Only whispers of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. heard in speech
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American patriot Thomas Paine seems to have been an influence
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Other noted references: President Kennedy, Shakespeare and Abraham from Bible
American
American
And, perhaps thinking that the simple fact of an @placeholder being sworn in as president was sufficiently drenched with significance, he made only the most glancing reference to King.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
And, perhaps thinking that the simple fact of an African-American being sworn in as president was sufficiently drenched with significance, he made only the most glancing reference to @placeholder.