With a host of near 2 million gathered on the Mall to see him sworn in, Barack Obama delivered an inaugural that was the antithesis of a rallying cry for the "it's-our-turn!" faithful assembled below.
Rather, it was an admonition, a warning to the American people of the gravity of our condition, and an invitation of inclusion to that part of the nation that remains wary of Barack Obama.
Yes, there were reminders that he is our first African-American president. But this speech was not about the novelty of his race. It was about placing this 44th president in the tradition of all who have gone before — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, JFK and — Ronald Reagan.
A first sign this was not to be another windy progressive spiel came with his statement that our crisis is due not just to the "greed and irresponsibility" of some, but to our own "collective failure to make hard choices."
All of us are at fault, Obama was saying, in what became a stern and severe sermon to the nation.
"On this day we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. ... In the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things."
Citing St. Paul in First Corinthians, Obama cast himself in the role of one who speaks with authority, to demand of those he leads that they cease to act as children.
"In reaffirming our greatness as a nation," we must remember who and what made us great. It was not those who "prefer leisure over work"; rather, it was "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things."
Pardon me, but this is neo-Reaganite.
For our liberty, said Obama, men like these "fought and died in places like Concord and Gettysburg, Normandy and Khe Sanh."
This was startling. Mythologizing Khe Sanh, where the Marines held out against thousands of North Vietnamese in the bloodiest days of Vietnam, Obama was associating himself with the part of America that holds with Reagan that Vietnam was a "noble cause," not the "dirty immoral war" of the left's propaganda.
Obama seemed to be severing himself from Sen. McGovern, who diabolized the war, from John Kerry, who came home from Vietnam to say Americans were acting like war criminals, and from Jimmy Carter, who in 1976 called Vietnam a "racist war."
Was President Obama saying the right was right? Perhaps not.
But he was saying that the Marines at Khe Sanh and all of those who fought and died in Vietnam are to be honored alongside the men who stormed the bluffs at Pointe du Hoc.
"(O)ur power alone," said Obama, "cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please." Rather, "our power grows through its prudent use." While a repudiation of neoconservatism, these ideas are fully consistent with the traditional conservatism of the Founding Fathers.
Proceeding on to the wars in which we are now engaged, the new president declared, "We'll begin responsibly to leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan."
That "hard-earned peace in Afghanistan" echoes Ike on Korea, 1953. And, "leave Iraq to its people" sounds like Nixon seeking "peace with honor" as he brought the 525,000 American soldiers home.
To implacable enemies like al-Qaida, Obama declared, "You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." But to authoritarian and dictatorial regimes with which we are not at war, he offered, "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
This is not Winston Churchill's "victory at all costs!" nor JFK's "we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe ... ." Nor is it George W. Bush's Second Inaugural "ending tyranny in our world." It is rather the sober statement of a president who understands that his country, great as she is, is overextended and there needs to be a retreat from empire.
"As much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which the nation relies," said Obama, as he began to recite the values on which America depends, "honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These thing are true. ... What is demanded ... is a return to these truths." Again, Reagan comes to mind.
"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility, a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties ... ."
None of this is to suggest the new president is some born-again conservative; and there is much in his speech to argue he is not.
But this inaugural was the work of a mature and serious man who knows his county is in deep water, who seems to understand what got us there and who appreciates that, on some things, the right has indeed been right from the beginning.
Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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4 Comments | Post Comment
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Sir;... First of all, I must commend your article as being in the spirit of the Word 'Inaugurate' -to practice Augury... You seek to find some meaning while Mr. Obama pokes about the entrail of America's rotting corpse... But you see falsely... Certainly America has suffered some failure to make hard choices... I remember one working man, hard pressed who had to choose between spending a night in an emergency room with a son's headache, or getting a nights sleep so he could hold is job... No, he could not cover the medical bill, and even with insurance he was counting his pennies..And so that son died of a brain Aneurysm in his mother's arms... It is government that has not made hard choices... It is government that has divided the people so it would only have to serve a majority, until it could not even serve them...It is government that could not challenge its dogmas, and its ideologies even in the face of their total failure to serve this people well... The people have always had hard choices, always a choice between bad and worse; and God knows we have done the best we can; but our politics, -the dynamic of real need against real need has long ago been lost for the spectacle of Giant Ideologies destroying hope in a meaningless clash of Titan...You look at what made us great... It was not those who make us small, our Ideological Puritans, our Champions of Capitalism, our Robber Barons, and our Slave Masters... What one fool calls leisure a human being might call re-creation, or education, or relationships, or rest, or childrearing... Those who prefer work to leisure do not understand what damage sick and driven people can do... Americans need their lives as much as they need their jobs, and the sight of everyone working longer and harder for less and less is sickening... Again; this call for harder work by people sitting on their asses for seven out of every eight is nonsense... What have the risk takers risked but our environment, and our lives, and our money???We have made things, but mostly we have made people slaves, or superfluous to the process... Taxing labor meant every working man working harder for the same, and an increase in technology has resulted in some increase in profits, but no less of hours worked...What is our share??? When do we get more money, or have to work less hours???Our conditions are degraded...Now; every mother must try to raise her children, and work...It is not only expected, but unavoidable... .... .. And let me take issue with you about Vietnam... That war was fought for a failed ideology: Capitalism, but more than that, it was justified by another stupid idea, called the Domino theory.... Now, granted... We did not lose that war; but it was one that should never have been fought...I do not deny that the men who did their duty were noble...I do deny the nobility of the whole enterprise...It was a dirty immoral war fought in defense of a dirty immoral form of economy...And Nixon did not bring those men home...America realized the futility and the criminality of the war, that they bore the cost, and the casualties for no benefit what so ever... WE brought them home against the resistence of our government... AND There is the problem we face in a nutshell...We have no democracy... The government will in time respond to public opinion; but there is no direct method of expressing public will...No consensus is required to take us into war; and a large consensus is required to get us out; and considering how often in the history of mankind war has been proven a folly; the effort needed to effect government, and to change its direction is in the wrong place, and on the wrong side of events... The people should always govern... It is not to our credit what Mr. Obama concludes- that it is ultimatly the faith and determination of the people upon which the nation relies....It should not be ultimately...The people ultimately suffer bad government, and so; their control should be immediate, and not ultimate...They, We should have the facts...They, We should have the vote...We have suffered bad government long enough... We cannot accept majority rule, and republican government as equal to democracy... We have suffered enough...The strangled politics in government have long played to the benefit of the rich, and we can no longer accept this situation... We have to put hard choices behind us... We can have it all; All that our forefathers have fought for, and slaved for... WE do not have to watch helplessly while the rich cart off our rights and our treasures... We have to see that the true greatness of this land came out of our will to breathe our life into the Declaration of Independence, and the sentiments within... WE have to look as Lincoln did in the Gettysburg Address to a New Birth of Freedom...The Constitution for all its noble intentions has ruined us... WE must go back to our roots, and begin again... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Jan 23, 2009 5:45 AM
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The Constitution has not ruined us. It is the corrupt liberal unelected revisionist judges who have attempted to ruin us with their allies in the ACLU. We do not need to return to anything but a proper application of our Constitution.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Juanito Verde
Fri Jan 23, 2009 6:54 AM
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Re: Juanito Verde; sir,...So what??? Is the fact that they are unelected unconstitutional???I don't like the court because they allow so much in the way of property rights, but that is to be expected considering their class, and the fact that they are all millionaires before they reach the court... Get some contitutional law, and you will see that some saw a problem of the court in regard to democracy from the moment the constitution was written... And I say this not at all agreeing that the court has went with the aclu...I think they have done a lousy job protecting individual rights.... What they have done has often been in response to a legislature that votes for laws it knows before hand will never pass scrutiny from the court... It is an abdication of responsible government to break the law of the land because it is popular, when they have more power than any single private person to actually change the contitution, which is a better solution than breaking it...-(but I want to toss it out and start over)...As much as people are willing to curb abortion at a local or state level, for example, there is no democratic national support for an over turning of Roe V. Wade.... So it is the perfect issue to get the right out to vote, unless it is threatened, when it works to get out the left.... So who gains but the politicians who don't have to face real issues??? And you are seeing the result of a lot of irresponsible ideological shadow boxing at all level of government in this economic catastophe... I believe in Democracy....But ultimately, There is a Limit to the Power of Numbers....Say you don't like abortion, and I don't like capital punishment... Can't we both agree that government does not have the right to do abortions, or do murders because we cannot give to our government any more power than we own ourselves??? If murder is illegal for one, it is illegal for twenty, and if it is illegal for twenty it is illegal for a whole nation.... But then, we must question how good is our freedom, if the freedom of anyone to dispose of their own body as they see fit, is ended... If her freedom is no good, where is her freedom to do good, because the power of the government grows out of the consent of a free people to have government do good in their names, and no other sort of people can have democracy... And yet we can ask that our government not do the evil, it must, for freedom, allow... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #3
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Jan 23, 2009 6:56 PM
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Dear Byuke: He is a conservative. It's just that he's the real thing, not a phony, like so many Republicans have pretended to be over the years as they covered themselves with that pilfered mantle. It's not about cooties any more, where you call the poor kid in the schoolyard who's out of luck the bad name in vogue. You know, like "liberal". And then you call yourself the good name in vogue, like "conservative." Guess what: He's a liberal too. Go chew on that for a while. At least you seem to get that it's a whole new game now. Speaking of "it's our turn now," lucky for you it is that he's not into payback. Much as you all deserve it, he's moved on from there and decided to model behavior that is utterly foreign to way too many American "leaders." This rare form of behavior would be...can you guess? How to live life like an adult. That's an especially important thing to do when you are one. Or supposed to be.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Masako
Sun Jan 25, 2009 7:26 PM
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