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Seven Random Observations

1) Generally, it struck me as a kind of rhetorical transition for Obama. It’s in a President’s informal job description to cajole, inspire, teach and comfort. So rhetoric will continue to matter. But among the feelings I got from the inauguration address was a sense that Obama knows that the time when he will be defined predominantly by his soaring oratory is past. From now forward, he will be judged mainly by what he does, not what he says. Of course he will always attempt to frame his actions in words that shine a positive light on his deeds. But one gets the feeling that Obama already knows that the frame game only takes one so far, especially in a time of acute crisis. This may explain the more tempered, workmanlike quality of the speech than we’ve seen from him in the past.

2) Obama broke new ground in specifically acknowledging non-believers as a part of the strength of our “patchwork heritage.” Though we are a uniquely religious nation compared to the world’s other prosperous countries, non-believers represent a growing proportion of the population, especially among those under forty. It’s another reminder that Obama is comfortable with diversity in its many forms – a useful quality in the leader of a country that is becoming more diverse in every way, every day.

3) Obama incorrectly identified himself as the 44th person to take the oath of office. By a quirk of how these things are counted, Grover Cleveland Alexander is regarded as both the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. We’ve now begun our 44th presidency. But only 43 men have actually been presidents, including Obama.

4) As the botched oath was in progress, I thought to myself “someone on the right is actually going to raise questions about whether Obama is really President now.” It’s comforting to know how predictable these things have become.

5) Obama made the very useful and important point that “the success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.”

As I mentioned a few days ago, inequality in America has become so extreme, that even many conservatives now acknowledge that it’s a problem, not only for ethical reasons, but because it threatens our social fabric. A more progressive tax code will help. So will a real jobs program. But policies skewed overwhelmingly to favor the wealthy remain endemic in our political system. These will need to be addressed.

6)  Perhaps the most problematic part of Obama’s speech came when he said With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. 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.”

Few people would object to Obama’s vow to defeat terrorism or lessen the nuclear threat. But the re-affirmation of “our way of life” has, in American political parlance, an indisputably larger meaning. We regard ourselves as entitled to a level of material consumption unparalleled in human history.  It’s fine for our leaders to talk about the principles of sacrifice, hard-work and personal responsibility. And attacking greed is always a political winner. In the abstract, Americans by and large embrace these things.

In concrete terms, however, we hate being told that we might to change our consumer-driven way of life – our big houses (and, compared to the rest of the world, even our “modest” houses are large), new cars, our ipods, cell phones and large television sets, our wardrobes, new computers and our sprawl.

As it is, of course, many individual Americans do without these things. But no society consumes at the level we do. Jimmy Carter’s famous 1979 “malaise” speech warned Americans that the era of crass materialism and conspicuous consumption was drawing to a close. We faced an energy crisis of massive proportions and would imperil our future if we didn’t reclaim older verities of community, spirituality and frugality. He was trounced a year later by Ronald Reagan who promised Americans, in so many words, that Carter’s doom and gloom vision was nonsense, that America would always be Number one. After 9/11, Bush 43 told us our patriotic duty wasn’t to cut back on our consumption and use of energy resources, it was to shop. Bill Clinton told us that if we worked hard and played by the rules, all Americans deserved all the accouterments of the American dream.

Americans represent 5% of the world’s population and use 25% of its fossil fuels. We face the real prospect that we will not be able to fix the planetary climate crisis without changing fundamentally our lifestyles. There is a hope that a technological breakthrough will afford us access to limitless sources of energy, so that there would be no day of reckoning. Maybe that will come to pass. But we are likely facing far more profound trade-offs than any of our political leaders are prepared to say.

Rather than warn of such a possibility, Obama sought to allay the “nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.”

Later, Obama did nod briefly to the imbalance in global consumption: “and to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”

But there was only a single reference to our warming planet in the speech.

It’s not surprising that Obama would, on his inauguration day, avoid a depressing harangue about the future we may well face. But we’d likely regard it as inadequate if a newly-crowned President McCain gave such short shrift to important realities.

7) Thank the lord we have a new President.