Especially because he is so often such a skilled and moving orator...
And because of the tradition of momentous inaugural addresses accompanying momentous national transitions...
And because we so badly need such words and the powerful ideas behind them at the time of this particular momentous transition...
And because this was such a grand opportunity to launch a new direction in our politics, governance and community...
...For all these reasons I confess that I was somewhat disappointed with Barack Obama's inaugural address.
It started with a train ride. Barack Obama rode to Washington, D.C., for his presidential inauguration on a whistle-stop tour. "To the children who hear the whistle of the train and dream of a better life -- that's who we're fighting for," Obama said along the tour, which was compared to the train ride taken by Abraham Lincoln from Springfield, Ill., to Washington, D.C., in February 1861, en route to his first inauguration.
Every President has a honeymoon. Barack Obama's probably won't last long, because the real world won't give him a pass. The markets showed their lack of sentimentality by dropping sharply on inauguration day. The Repugs are looking to knock off a Cabinet nominee, and do anything they can to show they are still a force to be dealt with.
In truth, indeed they are. 48% of the country did not support Obama. He knows that, and hence, his symbolic attempts to neutralize his opponents with smiles and civility, a preacher at the ceremony, and a few Cabinet positions.
In 1940, believing that "God Bless America" was too passive an anthem, the great folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote an answer called "This Land is Your Land."
Pete Seeger, God bless him, sang it at the Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. We all know the chorus:
No matter how much celebrity they try to infuse him with, Barack Obama remains, somehow, as unassuming - so it appears - as that picture of him, which made the rounds on the Internet a few months ago, wiping his own table at a fast-food restaurant.
Is it all a dream? Has "change" really come to America, and the world, or has business as usual merely shape-shifted?
Inauguration day!
Gazillions of Americans descended on Washington. The rest of us were
watching on TV or checking out streaming video on our computers. No one
was paying attention to anything else. Every pundit in sight was
nattering away all day long, as they will tomorrow and, undoubtedly,
the next day about whatever comes to mind until we get bored. And in
the morning, when this post is still hanging around in your inbox,
you'll be reading your newspaper on... well, you know... the same things:
Obama's speech! So many inaugural balls! Etc., etc.
President Barack Obama takes office at a time defined by hope and fear in equal measure. To confront this nation's many challenges he will need to act swiftly, show that he is on the side of people whose homes are being foreclosed and jobs lost and invest political capital--along with trillions of dollars--in a sustained recovery program. While many caution our new President to tread carefully, the reality is that half-steps will not lay the groundwork for a new economy that is more just and fair.
WASHINGTON -- Looking westward into the sun and speaking to more than 1 million people on the Mall in front of him and to millions more around the world, President Barack Obama delivered a tough inaugural speech that must have made members of the outgoing Bush administration squirm in their chairs.
After thanking President George W.
With over a million exhilarated Americans filling the space between the civic shrines of the Capitol and the Washington Monument on the National Mall, President Barack Obama, in the first American inaugural address delivered by a black man, acknowledged the enthusiasm and hope he and his victory have inspired, but his speech was not overly celebratory.
WASHINGTON - Speaking before a record crowd estimated at between two and three million people at his inauguration here Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama promised a foreign policy of "humility and restraint" and "greater cooperation and understanding between nations".
