Obama's address was uplifting, despite the pomp and circumstance
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Version 0 of 1. The fact that American presidential inaugurations are pure ceremony – rituals shorn of any practical significance – was never clearer than on Monday morning on the Mall. To those not steeped in the traditions of US politics, the very concept of second-term inaugurations might seem a bit strange. No new president is assuming office, so why bother? Besides, it wasn't really even the start of Barack Obama's second term: the official swearing-in had happened on Sunday, the 20th of the month, as mandated by the constitution. (If it hadn't, the nation would have been president-less for a day.) Add to that the degree to which the idea of the vastly powerful president is itself a myth, and the whole affair can feel very far from the realities of Washington politics, let alone the rest of the world. It certainly doesn't follow, however, that the ceremony is meaningless, and Obama made doubly sure of that this time, delivering an address perhaps more politically progressive, and no less rhetorically uplifting, than any in his White House career. On a similarly freezing day in January 2009, he had responded to the overwhelming burden of expectations with a strikingly low-key, matter-of-fact speech, emphasising the many crises his administration was inheriting, requiring immediate attention. For his second – and final – inaugural address, he responded to a lower-key national mood with strong albeit vague words on climate change, economic justice and same-sex marriage, tracing the battle for equal rights through "Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall". Obama became only the second president, after FDR, to have taken the<br />oath of office four times, thanks to Chief Justice John Roberts's<br />bungling of the 2009 version, prompting a rerun the next day. And he<br />set a new record, becoming the first president to use the word "gay"<br />in an inaugural address in the sense of sexual orientation. The overarching theme of his address was to cast this and other liberal commitments as the fruit of the founders' vision of America. This appeared to make Justice Antonin Scalia look uneasy, which is probably as good a way as any to determine that your inaugural address must be on the right track. The morning was studded with significance and showbiz in equal measure: an invocation by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the civil rights activist and widow of Medgar Evers; performances by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Kelly Clarkson, Beyoncé and James Taylor; and a poetry reading by Richard Blanco, both the first Latino and the first gay man to assume that role. "I want to take a look one more time," Obama said shortly after his speech concluded, watching as the guests around him started filing out. "I'll never see this again." Then he headed off to the place where Washington's real business gets done, the Capitol – first to sign the papers of three cabinet nominees, including John Kerry for secretary of state, and then for a formal luncheon. For supporters of Obama disappointed by his first term, outraged by drone strikes and kill lists, finding Monday's events moving demanded the capacity to hold simultaneous conflicting thoughts and emotions. (One helpful strategy was to squint and imagine Mitt Romney at the podium.) But if disappointment accounted for some of Monday's attenuated elation – and a crowd a third the size of 2009's – then the familiarity of the unfolding scene surely accounted for some of it, too. Four years ago, an African-American with the middle name "Hussein" was being sworn in as president, and many watching could hardly believe it. This year, all that was just assumed – and that was a stirring fact in its own right. |