1. The Speech. Contrary to the lukewarm reviews of even some liberal pundits, I rather liked it. Or at least didn't hate it. Perhaps I was caught up in the atmospherics of "The Moment," or maybe I never expected as much from the speech as did the experts. I especially liked Obama's challenge to our enemies with this:
We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we
waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by
inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our
spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we
will defeat you.
Had a Republican uttered these words, the Left would be pulling their eyebrows out. Still, it was reassuring to hear Obama say them. Unless facts indicate otherwise I will take him at his word.
For now I will ignore the fact that Obama also promised to "roll back the specter of a warming planet." Nature seems to be doing a pretty good job of it without his help. I will also for the moment overlook Obama's stinginess when it came to praise for his predecessor. Surely GWB must have done something worth noting during the last eight years.
For commentator Yuval Levin's perspective on the Speech, click here.
2. The Benediction. God love Dr. Joseph Lowery, old bull of the civil rights movement and a contemporary of Dr. King. If Obama had to reach back into the fog of civil rights history for a closer, he could have done worse (Rev. Jesse Jackson comes to mind). Still, Lowery struck a discordant note when he dragged out the ancient rhyme about brown sticking around, yellow getting mellow, etc. By admonishing "white to embrace right," he didn't insult white folks so much as leave them scratching their heads. Didn't all-white Iowa caucus voters ignite the Obama blaze by rejecting Hillary Clinton and choosing him? Didn't white Americans throughout the Northeast, Midwest and Far West provide the margin of victory that gave Dr. Lowery the chance to laud Obama at his inauguration?Pres. Obama proclaimed an end to petty grievances and recriminations that he says have strangled our politics. One hopes that Dr. Lowery's colorful poem represents the final airing of the grievances and recriminations of a painful but thankfully bygone era.
3. The Boos and Na-na-na-na-na-nas. As he was ushered out of office, President Bush was booed and taunted by some in the Hope-and-Change crowd that came to usher in a new kind of politics. Not nice. Enough said.
4. The Invocation. I have saved the best for last. I have only read a transcript of Rick Warren's remarks, but who can fail to be impressed when the first passage of Scripture quoted is from the Sh'ma, one of the holiest prayer in Judaism: "Hear O Israel the Lord is our god the Lord is One."
The rest of his invocation was standard fare for this sort of thing, but one other line sticks out:
Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans. United not by race or religion or by blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us.
Whatever you may think of Pastor Rick, his words here capture the essence of what the other day was all about.
Plus, how can you not like a guy who pisses off so many liberals?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs buddy of yours I'd like to read the comment that was taken off and why you took it off.
ReplyDeleteThanks
1- Obama could say nothing noteworthy of GWB without lying. He was the worst president we have ever had.
ReplyDelete2-Dr. Lowery was hilarious.
3-Perhaps it's time to take off the blinders of ideology - Obama is a moderate pragmatist, a centerist who will not brook the attack politics of the last administration in his.
Besides, if He can't make it work we are ALL screwed!
I agree with Dave Italiaander. Obama will try to strike a position in the center, although his supporters on the left, and detractors on the right, will try to pin him in a corner. While I may disagree with some already publicized decisions, I suspect that he is keenly aware of his place in history and will learn on the job quickly. Let's hope some tyrant doesn't test him too soon.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure where Obama stands on a lot of things.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that seems to be clearly established from the past eight years is that big Federal government does not work. According to a couple of sources, Clinton's last budget was $1.9 Trillion in outlays, Bush's 2009 budget was $3.1 Trillion in outlays. In 2006 washingtonpost.com had an article:
"Big Government Gets Bigger
Study Counts More Employees, Cites Increase in Contractors
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 6, 2006; Page A21
The federal government keeps getting bigger.
The Republican Party's oft-stated affinity for smaller government has not applied during the Bush administration. According to a recent study, not only is the number of federal civil servants on the rise, but so are the numbers of employees working for government-funded contractors and for organizations that receive government grants.
Roll all of those together -- and mix in the numbers of postal workers and military personnel on the federal payroll -- and the "true size" of the federal government stands at 14.6 million employees, said Paul C. Light, the study's author and a government professor at New York University.
That compares with 12.1 million employees in 2002, said Light, who has tracked the growth of government for years and has data for as far back as 1990. The latest increase is almost entirely due to contractors, whose ranks swelled by 2.5 million since 2002, Light wrote in his 10-page research brief.
So, assuming that Dave I. is correct, and everything Bush did was awful, that would include his allowing the Federal government to get so damn big and expensive.
So, go you Democrats, and whittle down the size of the Federal government!