President Obama delivered his speech with his usual rock star cadence, with his now familiar baritone which sort of reminds me of Chuck D's intonations on the more successful and riveting Public Enemy tracks. And it was easy to be swept in the moment of pageantry, pomp, circumstance, and the glowing admiration of media commentators who were happy they backed the right horse, and that the American people agreed. At least we didn't have any discussions of the President's basketball prowess or the selection of the First Family pooch.
It was difficult to catch the nuances of policy presented in the speech over the noise, and people who thought themselves clever while making remarks like "I think it is great that we elected someone with the same middle name as our enemy," followed with the equally observant " and "his name sounds like Osama's too." Of course, it is even more amazing when these people with their bigoted remarks were actually Mr. Obama's supporters, who were rooting for him like they would root for Michael Jordan sinking a three point shot to ensure yet another title for the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. But unlike MJ, the Constitutional limit of two successive terms proscribes an Obama "three peat."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.html?pagewanted=3
But I have to admit that there was pageantry, as all across the land, in court houses and school houses and bars and pubs and in homes and work places and just about anywhere you can imagine, the Inaugural Address was received with the same kind of bravado one would express during a baseball game between the Yankees and Red Sox, and for me to some extent, it was the Red Sox with advantage, and Big Papi just drove the ball into the gap against Mariano Rivera.
As a Yankee Fan whose veins bleed pin stripe blue, and whose fondest sports memory in life is George W. Bush throwing at the first pitch in game three of the 2001 World Series at the Cathedral of Baseball, the past couple of months do feel like a Red Sox victory, as hardcore "Obama Fans" remind me of the more aggressive elements of "the Red Sox Nation."
A Presidential speech is a matter of subtle nuanced language. Each line is haggled over with significance, by advisers and those who would make public policy for an entire nation, as the transcript will be parsed. Each sentence contains a clue about how our leader feels about policy, history, and the direction our country will be heading. Such speeches are calculated as they reflect the "sum total inputs" from cabinet heads, and those making policy for the various presidential agencies. The one passage which caught my attention, even through the noise at Eleanor Rigby's, was this passage:
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult
task.
I am always weary of government officials who tell people that they owe the world something, a great obligation which they should seize gladly. Guilt and collective responsibility are classic methods of control. Remove the flowery Harvard Law School lingo, and it's translated to "Give me everything you earn and give it gladly, and do not be so cynical as to question my use of your money,"or you will become one of those "cynical discredited people."
You have an obligation to support yourself and family, and to obey the law, and the dictates of conscience, as well as to be honest and ethical in your business and personal dealings, but it really does not go beyond that.
The incredible growth of the government and government spending over the last several months, with one bail out after another, does not auger well for our society, as more institutions both public and private, will be accepting the reigns of a vastly empowered federal bureaucracy. This is not what America is about.
Just my humble opinion. Call me Diogenes.
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