The President needs a good second half.\u00a0 He was kind of half-whooped in the first half of his presidency, but if he comes out of the\u00a0inauguration\u00a0like Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens came out of the locker room at half-time yesterday, he may do okay.<\/p>\n

James Taylor was too brief and crunchy for my taste (I wanted something a little more martial), but the President\u2019s speech<\/a> held my attention, although the ending wasn\u2019t as rousing as I would have liked.\u00a0 Why do they all have to end the same way, \u201cAnd God bless these United States of America\u201d?\u00a0 It\u2019s time for a change.<\/p>\n

A few notable moments:<\/p>\n

They decided not to wave the red flag of the President\u2019s middle name in front of the birthers. <\/em>At his first inauguration, the President was sworn in as Barack Hussein<\/em> Obama.\u00a0 Today, he was Barack H. Obama.<\/p>\n

The speech immediately confirmed the strength of our democracy, and reminded us that we do not have to be divided by the origin of our names.\u00a0 Yet the President\u2019s name has<\/em> been a source of divisiveness, and\u00a0I have to assume\u00a0his middle\u00a0Islamic-sounding name\u00a0was\u00a0withheld so it wouldn’t divide.<\/p>\n

We were reminded that to be an American, all you have to do is pledge your allegiance to an idea, <\/em>\u00a0and then live your life accordingly.\u00a0 Well, live your life and do the work, because the President was adamant about citizens working to make the ideals manifest, to bring the self-evident truths into reality.\u00a0 \u201cWe must secure these gifts,\u201d he said, ever the community organizer.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged our cultural bias against central authority, but then warned us that our ancestors did not \u201cTrade the tyranny of a king for the privileges of a few.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then he sang of the great accomplishments of the central authority in America\u2014the Federal Government: railroads, highways, schools, Social Security, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and laws that make competition thrive and help protect the vulnerable. These things do not weaken us, he said.\u00a0 They free us to take risk.<\/p>\n

He did say that government is not a panacea, but then insisted that it is only through collective action that we can form a more perfect Union.<\/p>\n

I liked the refrain\u2014the subtle refrain\u2014of We the People, implying that we are part of a collective.\u00a0 We are not all stand-alone heroes, he was saying. We need to make decisions and take action as a group.\u00a0 It\u2019s the Democratic message:\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019re not on your own.\u00a0 We\u2019re in this together.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>In fact, inclusiveness was a major theme.\u00a0 He used metonymy when he spoke of Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall, each symbolic of an expanding circle of inclusion.<\/p>\n

By the way, I had to look up Seneca Falls.\u00a0 At first I thought it might have referred to an event that symbolized the inclusion of Native Americans into the American family, but no, that’s not what it meant. Seneca Falls was the town in upstate New York where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first Womens’ Rights Convention in 1848.<\/p>\n

I like the section where he said we don\u2019t have to argue about the role of government for all time; we only need to decide how Government should act in our <\/em>time.<\/p>\n

He was in good voice.\u00a0 He paused between thoughts and phrases\u2014he\u2019s the master of the pause. \u00a0His voice is a flexible instrument, capable of solemnity, humor, anger, and emphasis: he knows how to punctuate spoken words.<\/p>\n

He spoke to Congress and those citizens who have been passionate supporters.\u00a0 To Congress he said, \u201cMy oath is the same as yours, and we don\u2019t take oaths to fight for party and faction.\u201d<\/p>\n

To the citizens who support his agenda, he said, \u201cRaise up your voices, gin up the airwaves, the Internet, and the Social Media.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a fight on our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then came the ending that failed to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, that failed to invoke his established theme, that We the People are one body; that out of many, we become one; that we are not individual grains of wheat, but rather a whole loaf, inseparable, one from the other, leavened by our faith, our reason, and our deeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President needs a good second half.\u00a0 He was kind of half-whooped in the first half of his presidency, but if he comes out of the\u00a0inauguration\u00a0like Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens came out of the locker room at half-time yesterday, he may do okay. James Taylor was too brief and crunchy for my taste… Read More »Obama inaugurates the second half of his Presidency<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_ti_tpc_template_sync":false,"_ti_tpc_template_id":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[904],"yoast_head":"\n