High-Voltage Message in Washington's Frigid Air

Yes, I did my part Tuesday to lock in "change." My son and I journeyed to Washington to assume our assigned role as extras -- the two of us constituting one-millionth of the prodigious turnout of Americans who descended on the capital to wrest back their government from the Beltway lobbies and special interests and bilious "think-tanks" that shill for them. (Yes, look hard and you can see us in the photo the New York Times ran on page P2 today--back between the second and third tree from the left.)

That outpouring of humanity-- in sharp contrast to the fleets of stretch limousines that flooded the capital for the Reagan and Bush inaugurations -- represents Barack Obama's strongest hand in exorcising the "false promises" and "worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."

The cold yesterday was numbing, but the new president's stern, crisp message was electrifying: Both at home and abroad, Obama's America is reversing the misguided detour of the past quarter century.

Obama brushed aside shibboleths about the perils of big government and took dead aim at the idolatry of free markets--both of which defeat-traumatized Democrats had uncritically embraced in the 1990s. The test, Obama declared, is "whether it works." In politics and economics as in science, Obama returns us to a reality-based universe.

Washington's epiphany will resonate throughout the world. Most of Africa and Latin America--including Kenya, the Obama family's homeland--suffered major reversals in health, education, and reduction of poverty since the 1980s thanks to the "structural adjustment" imposed on them by Washington's conservative orthodoxy. People there link Washington to the inequality and conflicts that have ripped through dozens of countries in the past two decades.

In vowing Americans' help "to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds," the first Luo president did, in truth, reaffirm George Bush's most promising change of course, on aid. In recalling the impoverished "small village where my father was born," though, he added an unprecedented familiarity that uniquely bonds the Third World's billions of people to the First Family in the White House. It helps that he voiced strong exception to the arrogant resolve, epitomized by the unlamented Dick Cheney, to "consume the world's resources without regard to effect."

A world weary of American leaders' stark division of the world between good and evil--whether John Foster Dulles's indignation at "immoral" neutralism or Bush's insistence that those not with us are against us--heard a very different message from Obama. "America is a friend of each nation," the president declared, "and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity."

Bluntly repudiating conservatives' saber-rattling unilateralism, Obama emphasized that "our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please." He did not threaten authoritarian regimes with invasion, but promised to "extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." He assured the Muslim world of "mutual respect" even as he vowed to defeat terrorists slaughtering innocents.

The new president reiterated his commitment to "leave Iraq to its people"--responsibly, of course--and hinted at changing direction in Afghanistan with a pledge to "forge a hard-earned peace" there, rather than promise pursuit of victory in a lengthy war. And though he made no mention of the United Nations, he made clear that rolling back both nuclear dangers and global warming--two giant reversals of Bush global policy--will be major priorities, .

Substantively, it was a hard-hitting and, yes, audacious inaugural address, charting a new course for Americans unmoored by the "greed and irresponsibility...of some." (Wall Street responded with a five percent drop in the stock market.) Rhetorically, it did not quite sparkle like the first inaugural I heard as a ten-year old, John F. Kennedy's. Standing in the cold yesterday, we heard no trumpet summoning us, nor any striking image that reframes our era like the "long twilight struggle" to which Kennedy ratcheted down the cold war.

Yet Obama signaled a dramatic shift in foreign policy, as Kennedy did in nudging the nation from the cold war psychosis of the McCarthy-Dulles decade--and for that matter as did Jimmy Carter, in durably refocusing American foreign policy on the cause of human rights unwarped by cold war hypocrisy. Obama yesterday insisted that America's policy be guided not by a triumphalist imposition of power, but by the richness of our patchwork heritage, "drawn from every end of this earth" and reflecting our own painful history of overcoming racism and injustice at home.

At last fall's Al Smith roast hosted by New York's Cardinal Archbishop for presidential candidates, Obama jokingly disavowed supposed rumors that he had been born in a manger, revealing that he had come from planet Krypton instead. But the sober fact is that his agenda, and the crisis through which he must lead Americans and the world, seem to call for both a Messiah and a Superman.

Two million believers poured into Washington this week to show the capital our determination to sustain this president, who seems anointed with a unique charism of public affection and hope both in America and worldwide. There is ample reason to hope that, with malice toward none and charity toward all (as another inaugural address put it), this president just might re-make the agenda of this nation and the world.

Comments

[Elwin sykes]

Thanks, Jeff, for your enthusiastic and learned recap of the great day down in DC. Not only will Obama be in the 21st century who Mandela was in the 20th and Frederick Douglass in the 19th--the great Black of his time--but like his predecessors, Obama will be the greatest citizen of the world in the 21st century. I predict that not only will he earn at the least one Nobel Prize for Peace but that prizes will be named in his honor shortly after he completes his second term, if not before.

[carol nagorka sandberg]

Hi Jeff ,
Was looking for a forum to attend in the city on Friday ...saw that you were hosting the event at the U.N. , unfortunately your event is filled so being the researcher that iam .. I looked you up and started reading your bio etc.. after reading an obviously Impressive" stack of credentials and credits! what stands out most in my mind... "I applaud you for taking your son to Washington on the 21st!" wow , now that is a powerful statement about who you are. to me!!....and that's what I like to hear!
sorry the forum is closed on Friday, if you get any last minute cancellations, I would love to attend ( I am sure you have already have a long list, never hurts to try ..

FYI, below are some of my favorite topic's and specialties,
humanitarian issues, organizational management leadership, child development- success , family values , building relationship skills ,health care, the ADA. If you ever need help in these areas. I would love to send my c.v for your review, and would enjoyed volunteering my services .
best to you!
Carol