I can totally see where your comment is coming from. That speech was carefully and deliberately written and targeted and pandering to its audience, the meritocr

I can totally see where your comment is coming from. That speech was carefully and deliberately written and targeted and pandering to its audience, the meritocratic elite. Each sentence phrased /just so/, like the historical reference compressed into an adjective because /this/ audience is expected to know and unpack the context in real time ("Stakahnovite hours", how pithy, how self-congratulatory, and yet at the same time it is clearly intended to convey negativity by association with communism). I can't agree that it was just a self congratulatory speech. You have to speak to your audience. Some degree of pandering is expected and necessary. And, the final message was still very clear: here are the problems, you folks are supposed to be the best and the brightest, work towards finding the solution. Whatever else, you have to admit that's one damn well written speech.