Most great and memorable inaugural addresses are imbued with a
spirit of charity and magnanimity. There is a clear sense that the
president is speaking not for one political party or faction, but
rather for the nation as a whole.
Thus in his first inaugural address, Jefferson declared, “We are
all Republicans; we are all Federalists.” In his second inaugural
address, Lincoln, likewise, spoke of “bind[ing] up the nation’s
wounds” And Reagan urged us to “work and act together, not as
members of political parties, but as Americans.”
But Jefferson, Lincoln, and Reagan were great presidents and
publicly spirited men who spoke timeless and eternal truths. Barack
Obama, however, is not a great president, and he is not especially
large of spirit. He’s just a reflexive and dogmatic liberal.
Thus far from speaking timeless and eternal truths, he instead
speaks the hackneyed liberal gospel as taught to him by the
academic clerisy at Columbia and Harvard.
Indeed, Obama’s second inaugural address was a liberal wet
dream: It pressed all of the Left’s erogenous zones:
• Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Obama vowed not to
change or reform them — even though they are driving us toward
financial insolvency, and even though they provide workers with a
relatively lousy return on their investment.
• “Climate change”? It is real, and it must be addressed —
now!
• “Sustainable (read: green) energy”? “America cannot resist
this transition. We must lead it” — now!
• Women? They suffer wage discrimination, which must be
addressed by new governmental action — now!
• Gays? They are the new blacks; and their relationships must be
given the same legal status as heterosexual married couples. We
mustn’t “discriminate” — children, families, and religious liberty
be damned.
• Immigrants and illegal aliens? Hasta la vista, Yankee! Move
over, whitey! There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is
Barack. And so, no longer will illegals be “expelled from our
country.”
• Defense and foreign policy? “A decade of war is now ending,”
insists Obama. Really? Has anyone asked al Qaeda?
We will “engage,” but not militarily, he adds. Instead, “we will
show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other
nations peacefully.” Again, that’s a very nice sentiment, but does
it correspond with the real world?
• Economic growth, which was of central importance in Reagan’s
inaugural addresses, is nowhere to be found in Obama’s. The words
and the phrase simply doesn’t exist in his vocabulary. Economic
growth, instead, is taken for granted.
“Economic recovery has begun,” Obama declares, without offering
any ideas whatsoever for how to sustain and promote economic
growth.
And, through it all, there is a constant theme: It’s 1965 all
over again, America! And, then as now, you have to fight for your
rights! The path to salvation lies through governmental action and
government-enforced “equality.”
By contrast, the great (rhetorical) presidents — Reagan and
Kennedy, for instance — spoke of advancing the cause of
liberty.
True, Lincoln spoke of equality, but he spoke of equality of
opportunity, not equality of result. Yet, it is the latter and not
the former that Obama and the Left push and agitate for.
In any case, it is clearly not 1965. Legal discrimination
against blacks and women — and even, to a very significant extent,
gays — has been eliminated. And to the extent that legal
discrimination still exists, it is typically “reverse
discrimination” against lower-middle-class white men and
Bible-believing Christians. Yet, by pushing the gay agenda, gay
“marriage,” and “affirmative action,” Obama and the left perpetuate
this very same noxious reverse discrimination.
In short, Obama has little concern for liberty. And so, his
inaugural address, while seductive to liberals, was a knee to the
groin of conservatives.
Worse than that, it was a declaration of political war against
the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Obama is
saying, in effect: “I won, and I am determined to do it my way,
come hell or high water. Deal with it, Republicans. There will be
no compromise.”
In this way, Obama is the anti-Lincoln. Lincoln, of course,
famously declared in his second inaugural address that America must
move forward, “with malice toward none [and] charity toward
all.”
Obama, by contrast, says that what’s necessary is “spite for the
Right, and goodies for the Left.” Or, to twist the words of another
great conservative Republican president, Ronald Reagan: “It’s
mourning in America.”
