Barack Obama’s swearing-in as president of the United States Tuesday will be a majestic moment in our history, perhaps only equaled by that hot summer day in 1776 when a courageous group of men put their name on a dangerous declaration.
Obama’s election last fall as the most powerful man in the world serves to bring to fruition the shining promise arising from the Declaration of Independence.
The encompassing words of the inspirational document by Thomas Jefferson did not match the political reality. All men may have been created equal, but the United States initially only treated as equal white men of some standing.
Thankfully, the country and its democracy has grown and evolved since then. Not quickly by any means, and certainly not easily. We had to fight a war amongst ourselves and inflict ongoing and at times unspeakable pain and suffering on each other.
But, we have progressed. Hugely. The journey is by no means finished and likely never will be, human nature being largely immutable.
Obama’s election signals a milestone in our political, cultural and moral advancement that will shine over our future history.
Additionally, he may likely be the right man at the right time equal to or surpassing Ronald Reagan.
At the risk of tickling off members of both political parties, Obama provides hope and vision at scary and gloomy times in our history, just as Reagan did in 1980.
Our economic times now are certainly dire and worrisome. But, those who were around as the decade of the ‘80s opened remember the despair of the Rust Belt, the incredibly high unemployment numbers, interest rates and inflation that seemed to have America at the brink.
More than any policy or action, Reagan led us back by instilling hope, belief in the greatness of this country and confidence we could surmount our problems.
Obama seems to possess inherent and honed skills to do as Reagan. Plus, he appears uniquely to be able to understand changing circumstances and adjusting to them, and most importantly capable of communicating the same.
Those talents played a decisive role in his winning election due to his recognition of what was happening with the economy, what it might mean and how ideas and plans would need to be adjusted to the reality.
Political hacks might call it flip-flopping or some other foolishness. It actually harkens to that truism about wise men changing their minds.
Many of our political conflicts in recent years have centered on issues that often lack universality, social, religious and yes gun issues that all of us do not necessarily care about heavily or do not know where we stand firmly.
The major issues confronting us now, a frightening economy and two ongoing wars abroad, ensnare us all and should leave us all hoping for unprecedented success by a new and historic president.
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Moving from possibly the sublime to the politically near ridiculous: Television programmers need to be taking notes in the Tennessee capital.
Whatever else our legislative bodies can do for us, and, yeah, it’s not a lot, they know how to bring the drama.
Shoot, I’m going to start recording the opening sessions.
After last fall’s election results seemed to clearly move control of both bodies to Republicans, this year’s drama appeared reduced to political-weinies’ only interest in state constitutional officers, most of whom could not be named by most citizens for a winning Powerball ticket, and committee leadership and such.
The GOP had its new House leader all picked out to replace the Democratic Speaker who had served longer than anyone in the country.
Hey, the guy had paid a photographer to record his historic day and bought a bunch of American flags to fly over the Capital that day.
But, taking a page out of the GOP’s political gamesmanship last year when the Republicans got a Democratic senator to vote with them to her party’s surprise and dismay, the Dems, down by a 50-49 count, got one Republican to vote for himself as speaker and voted en masse to elect him instead of the GOP’s heir apparent.
Wow.
The Republicans were outraged, booing, hissing and hollering “traitor.” The new speaker probably had better enjoy his term as he will likely follow in the steps of the former Democratic senator who got knocked out by her party even after seeming, albeit by a tiny margin, to have won her primary race last fall.
The Dems apparently don’t boo or hiss, but they did get even.
Neither party appears to have learned that if you have a disaffected member, as with the Democratic senator who did not feel her legislation was getting proper consideration or the new speaker who actually had fellow Republicans campaign against him last fall, then that unhappy member might be persuaded to vote on his/her own agenda.
And, why not? We don’t elect parties in this state; we elect individuals. They may or may not agree with all of their party’s particular agendas or directives and at least with two in two years they have made that pretty clear.
Of course, if the parties don’t learn, I guess the rest of us can sit back and enjoy the angst, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, the intrigue and the drama. Hey, it beats TV.
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Maybe we should really pay attention when airline personnel go over emergency instructions, especially if we happen to be sitting in one of those emergency exit aisles.
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I’m still grieving the Titans’ loss. You?
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