American Rhetoric: Movie Speech

"Deep Impact" (1988)

President Beck's 'Let Us Begin' Address

Audio mp3 delivered by Morgan Freeman

We watched as the bombs shattered the second comet into a million pieces of ice and rocks that burned harmlessly in our atmosphere, and lit up the sky for an hour.

Still, we were left with the devastation of the first.

The waters reached as far inland as the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys. It washed away farms and towns, forests and skyscrapers

-- but the water receded.

The wave hit Europe and Africa, too. Millions were lost, countless more left homeless

-- but the waters receded.

Cities fall, but they are rebuilt.

And heroes die, but they are remembered.

   We honor them with every brick we lay, with every field we sow, with every child we comfort and then teach to rejoice in what we have been re-given.

Our planet, our home.

So, now, let us begin.