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Barack Obama and Joe Biden haven't stopped quoting WB Yeats since 2008
LAST NIGHT, PRESIDENT Barack Obama awarded Vice President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
You’ve probably seen the heartwarming video by now, but fine, we’ll watch it again. Twist our arm, why don’t you?
(If you can’t see the video, please click here.)
Both Biden and Obama delivered speeches before the presentation and took it upon themselves to quote two of Ireland’s most celebrated poets, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney.
In fact, Obama joked that he had to quote Yeats as Biden had already quoted from Seamus Heaney.
This is not the first time Obama and Biden have quoted Sligo’s most renowned poet/the bane of every Irish Leaving Cert student’s life
In fact, you could probably reasonably describe the President and Vice President as Yeats fanboys such is the frequency with which they cite his work.
TFW you remember a really good Yeats poem. AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
For example, here’s an excerpt from a speech President Obama delivered at the 2011 National and State Teachers of the Year
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And here’s the moving conclusion to Obama’s statement regarding the passing of Beau Biden, the son of Joe Biden
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He also paraphrased The Second Coming in a speech delivered in Germany in April 2016.
AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
And whipped out some Yeats while introducing Enda in 2015
Later that day, Enda presented him with a book of Yeats’ poetry
Ooh Enda, you big lick.
AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
But it wasn’t just Obama who was a fan of Yeats. Here’s Vice President Joe Biden applying Easter, 1916 to what was going on in the Middle East in 2011
AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
And, er, here he is doing it again in India a few months later.
AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
And yet again in April 2012!
Okay, Joe. We get it. It’s a good poem.
White House White House
In fact, Joe Biden also used “All changed, changed utterly” here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and finally here.
You could say that all changed, changed utterly apart from Biden’s speeches.
Giphy Giphy
In all seriousness, we’ll miss these two and their Yeats-loving ways
(Even if we’re sad that they never performed a dramatic recitation of The Lake Isle of Inishfree.)
Susan Walsh Susan Walsh
Because if one thing is for certain, it’s that all has changed, changed utterly
*gulp*
Evan Vucci Evan Vucci
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all's changed changed utterly Barack Obama Craic WB Yeats