Inauguration Day

President Obama's inaugural address received good (albeit not glowing) reviews from most of the commentators I've heard or read in the last 24 hours. Listening to the speech on the radio, however, I found it quite lacking. About ten minutes into the speech, I found myself still struggling to discern any kind of theme or structure to it. Admittedly, it got somewhat better during the last five minutes or so. Moreover, by the end, Obama had strung together enough discrete ideas to provide a general impression of his vision for the next four years. But I don't believe Obama's vaunted rhetorical skills did much to elevate the particular thoughts he set out to convey.

Boiled down to its very essence, the point of the speech seemed to be: "These are tough times but we can work through these problems just as we have in the past." He indicated that solving the country's problems would require some new approaches but that we'll need to rely on our longstanding values and traditions to help us muddle through. So, in a sense, it was both forward-looking and backward-looking at the same time.

If that's what Obama was trying to say, one would think that finding inspiring words in which to say it shouldn't have been enormously difficult. Instead, the speech seemed weirdly disjointed to me, like something he might have cobbled together the night before from the texts of earlier addresses.

Not that it really matters. Practically the only thing people remember from the entire corpus of presidential inaugural addresses "Ask not what your country can do for you . . ." and "The only thing we have to fear . . . ." Had Obama been able to come up with just one line like these, he could have spent the remaining twenty minutes of his speech reading from the D.C. telephone directory. In fifty years, nobody would know the difference.

Speaking of history, the stupidest thing I heard all day was from the several news commentators who declared that this inauguration represented the 44th time America has witnessed a "peaceful transfer of power" from one president to another. Oh really? I wouldn't call the transfer of power from Abraham Lincoln to Andrew Johnson "peaceful." Ditto for the transfers of power that took place in 1881, 1901, and 1963. If the transfer of power from Kennedy to LBJ was "peaceful," I'd hate to see what a violent transfer of power would look like.

Not that I really expect this level of precision from TV newsreaders, but it seems to me the relevant number is 35. That's the number of times a sitting president voluntarily relinquished the powers of the presidency to his elected (34 times) or unelected (Gerald Ford) successor.

I do think it's a good thing to see people at both ends of the political spectrum celebrating this marvelous civic tradition. I wish those on the left (and the media, for that matter) had felt a similar sense of wonder during the corresponding events four and eight years ago. As I recall from Inauguration Day 2001 and 2005, a great deal of the focus was on the number of protesters who were planning to show up and make trouble. Democrats seemed to feel that these inaugurals somehow symbolized a perversion of our electoral process rather than its fulfillment. Funny what a difference a few years can make.