Bush & Noonan

George H. W. Bush had provided a list of words to Peggy Noonan as she was preparing his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Among the words were "kindness," "caring," "decency," and "heart." Noonan turned them into a sentence: "I wanted a kinder nation." Bush penciled in "gentler." 

That's it! That's how this work gets done! (1) The speaker does a brain dump on you. (2) You organize the thoughts into sentences and paragraphs. (3) The speaker makes them his or her own. It's an Oreo cookie, and the writer is the filling. 

Kinder/gentler came back in the inaugural address. Knowing that it's coming, we can appreciate what happens a few sentences before...

No President, no government, can teach us to remember what is best in what we are. But if the man you have chosen to lead this government can help make a difference; if he can celebrate the quieter, deeper successes that are made not of gold and silk, but of better hearts and finer souls; if he can do these things, then he must.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world.

Did you see it, the foreshadowing? Before "kinder/gentler," they gave us "quieter/deeper" and  "better/finer." But not just that. There were the less obvious dualities of "no President, no government," "gold and silk," "hearts and souls," "if he can, then he must." And then, they play the variation on the theme set forth in the convention speech, where Bush had said:

I want a kinder, and gentler nation. 

Now, in the inaugural, they give us, the listeners, full credit for knowing the straightforward "I want..." expression of kinder/gentler from the convention, and they treat us to this variation that is actually what it speaks of -- it's a kinder, gentler development of its antecedent: "to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world."