A few more wrap-up thoughts on our national maiden voyage into Obama territory in a moment, but first a few housekeeping things.
To all of you who commented on Spiritual Literacy, thanks so much for your thoughts. I was surprised at how many of you guys are in similar territory. I was assuming that more of you were settled in your spiritual commitments (or lack thereof), so it was kind of reassuring to know that we’re in good, similarly befuddled company, and not just being negligent. I’m thinking on your replies, and will post more on it soon. (Also, thanks in general for commenting! It’s so great to have other opinions to lean into and not just have to listen to my own voice echoing around in here.)
Second, Bob, I saw your comment about “which of the preachers asked for God’s forgiveness?” and I wanted to ask you to expand your question a bit more since it sounds like you have an observation in mind. Feel free to do that in the comments here, and I can start a thread there.
President Barack Obama makes a call from the Oval Office on his first full day on the job.
(Photo Credit: Callie Shell/Aurora for TIME)
Down to it. I found a couple of interesting pieces to highlight on this evening, 24 hours after installing President Obama safely in office.
First, on the speech. In general, I was reading a bit of deflation around the punditsphere. I think the political pros were looking for a bit more historicity to hang their analysis on, and came away disappointed. So I was interested in hearing more detail from those who I ran across who said, “yes, the speech wasn’t soaring oratory for the ages, but it was great because of being so appropriate for this moment” – which is essentially how I felt – to get a sense of why it might have landed well with them.
I found a couple of great responses on Slog. The first, Erica, a woman who was a Hillary supporter and always very skeptical of Obama, had this to say:
I’ve always been a little cold to Obama because I feel he’s never really acknowledged this—never owned his own fallibility, the fact that he will inevitably let his followers down. His speeches have always been too soaring, too capital-H historical, too full of crowd-pleasing flourishes and fillips, for my taste. Unlike the chanting, worshipful crowds, I wasn’t looking for a “climactic moment”; as far as I’m concerned, “plain language”—the type of rhetoric Eli referred to as “middle-brow”—is exactly what yesterday’s occasion called for. The notes Obama struck yesterday—we are a nation humbled, my predecessor has done harm to America but we will not be broken, change requires work and responsibility—were exactly the ones I wanted to hear at this moment in history.
The second, Eli, a reporter for the Stranger who has trailed Obama through his historic run and transition, had this very insightful dissection:
The speech, with its use of what his team warned in advance would be “plain language,” aimed directly for the middle—the political center, the middle-brow, a reception as neither awful nor one-of-a-kind. This is actually not a bad political move for Obama. The more he hugs the center, the more he distances himself from the “aloof and professorial” caricature, the more he talks to the mass audience using familiar language and easy ideas, the more politically powerful he becomes…
Finally: I’ve watched Obama deliver a number of speeches over the last year-and-a-half. He is clearly more than capable of giving an excited crowd the release it wants. Intellectually and oratorically, he is more than capable of besting FDR’s first and coming close to, or exceeding, Lincoln’s second. He didn’t want to, I think. To give the crowd their desired moment of tremendous release would be to create a void that they would then expect to be filled by immediate change, immediate progress, immediate solutions from the man who had, after all, just given them exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it. “More, please?” people would say.
Better, given the current state of the country, to lower expectations—or miss them entirely—and get the mass audience relating to him as a hard-working, clear-headed, plain-speaking, change-minded guy who is on their side, isn’t some sort of Messiah, and won’t be unleashing any instant-transformation lighting bolts.
That, to my ears, is what Obama achieved with his speech yesterday, and it is enough. More than enough.
The takeaway for me is, once again, Obama’s masterful ear for being able to sense and rhetorically address the national zeitgeist in a way that inspires people and draws them into the task at hand, sets their expectations exactly where they need to be for the next stage of action, and allows himself the maximum political framework to make his moves – not in a cynical way, but in the way of a man who sees his job as needing to produce actual results. And the best part is that none of it is manipulative or inauthentic. He’s always careful to invite the listener into a place of partnership, of mutual responsibility. In that sense, the speech was a real accomplishment.
Finally, the new Joe Klein piece in Time Magazine – blandly titled “Barack Obama Promises New Day, Work Begins Today” . For those of you not aware of it, Joe Klein wrote the memoir “Primary Colors” about the Clinton campaign that was made into the film with John Travolta (playing Bill) and Emma Thompson (playing Hillary) and has covered politics for a good long while. So, he’s got some heft when it comes to making pronouncements on the behavior of politicians.
His article is a wonderful peek into what has us Obama fans so excited about the potential of his presidency – his statesman-like dedication to governance without petty belligerence or bellicosity and his unique blend of policy wonk, a teambuilder with deep personnel and organizational intelligence, and, of course, an exceptionally keen sense of political inspiration and consensus. If you want a preview of the tone and legacy of the Obama years, this is a must-read. Seriously.
Here’s a shamelessly massive excerpt of the last part of the article:
Toward the end of the campaign, Michelle Obama asked me if I was going to write a novel about them like Primary Colors, my satiric account of the 1992 presidential race. I was at a loss for words, in part because the thought hadn’t even vaguely crossed my mind. “He can’t write a novel about us,” Barack Obama reassured his wife. “We’re too boring.”
Yes … and no. It’s hard to call the most exciting politician in decades boring. The millions who trekked to Washington for the Inauguration, who cried their eyes out and cheered their lungs raw, are testimony to the man’s sheer inspirational power. Reagan’s movement was called a revolution, but this may be more than that — the beginning of a whole new era of Obama-inspired and Obama-led citizen involvement. During the transition, the Obama website called for supporters to hold community meetings to discuss their health-care priorities. A staggering 10,000 meetings purportedly were held; 5,000 sent written reports — more paper! — to the transition office. This is a new kind of politics, with the potential to be the most powerful citizen army in U.S. history. If so, it will more likely be a force for civility — for “boring” things like good governance, for new ideas about how to control the cost of entitlements (which Obama pointedly mentioned in his speech) — rather than a rabble spamming the offices of recalcitrant Republicans. It will fit neatly into the Obama zeitgeist.
By the tone and style of his move to power, Obama has shown the world — and the people living in Sarah Palin’s small-town America, and even many liberals who had lost hope over time — a new, gloriously unexpected and vibrant face of our country. The sheer fun of the Inauguration, the world-record number of interracial hugs and kisses, augurs a new heterodox cultural energy, a nation — as the man said — of mutts. Already the Obama ethos is slipping into the nation’s cultural bloodstream — not just the interraciality but also the mind-blowing normality of the family: the fact that Michelle Obama brought Laura Bush a going-away present, the fact that Sasha and Malia will make their own beds in the White House, the fact that our President proudly wears a Chicago White Sox baseball cap when he goes to the gym.
Even more important, Obama promises a respite from the nonstop anger of the recent American political wars, the beginning of an era of civility, if not comity. “What the cynics fail to understand,” he said in his speech, “is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”
It would be nice to think the magnitude of the problems facing the nation would lead to a minimum of puerile contentiousness, but vile still seems to be the default position for some of Obama’s noisier detractors — “Obama Flubs the Oath” was the inaccurate headline greeting the new President on the Drudge Report. Too many of us in the media remain reluctant “to set aside childish things.” Happily, though, our new President seems to have an honest predilection for treating his opponents with respect. He seems intent on hearing their points of view and arguing, decorously, with them — that’s why he accepted a dinner invitation at conservative columnist George Will’s house. This is radical behavior in the village on the Potomac. It could force everyone to argue more carefully, to think twice before casting aspersions, to remember that the goal has to be more than temporal electoral victories — but, in this moment of peril, a better and stronger nation, a less ugly and dangerous world.
Again, it’s hard to believe we got it so right. I’m excited all over again.
More later as I get into this new groove.
