Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Tardy and Preliminary Thoughts on the Speech   [Jonah Goldberg]

I had to leave the computer right after the address and I only have a few minutes before my plane leaves for DC.

I thought the address was delivered beautifully, but here Obama suffers from expectations, since we already knew he can deliver a speech well.

I thought it was good that he wants to claim the founders for his cause and his party. It may infuriate conservatives—and rightly so in some cases—that an acolyte of the “living constitution” claims the endorsement of the founders, but we’re a stronger and better country when both parties seek to buy-in to the wisdom of the founders and the greatness of the nation. It was also nice that he had some good words for markets. And I thought his remarks on foreign policy were helpful all in all. If he’s serious about wanting to focus on effective rather than big government, that would be a good thing. But I suspect that this is a rhetorical gimmick to defend bigger government. We'll have to see. As John says below, I await the list of government programs he seeks to cut.

I agree with most of the folks here that it wasn’t as well-written as I expected. There were some awfully clunky clichés in there. For example, here’s the second paragraph:

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

Gathering clouds and raging storms? Really? How did that survive the first draft? Oh, and shouldn’t that be forebears not forbearers? A forbearer is someone who refrains from something.

Also, if you’re going to use clichéd language you should at least make it track logically. According to this imagery, times of peace and times of prosperity have not coincided, unless of course rising tides can be still at the same time.

This actually illustrates the larger problem with the speech. Too many of themes contradicted each other. On the one hand, he wants to be optimistic, but the speech was at times frightfully gloomy. He desperately wants to convey a sense that this is a new era, where we shed tired dogmas like a caterpillar sheds a cocoon. This requires him to categorize the pre-Obama era in tendentious and uncharitable ways (some of which have been detailed below). That, in turn, rubs against the grain of his alleged era of bipartisanship.

One last point, for now. There was also a great deal of nonsense in there. Ramesh already mentioned the bit about harnessing the sun and whatnot to power our factories (why not distill energy from our strategic unicorn manure stockpile). But the line that grated on me most came from the bit about service and sacrifice. He said:

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

No, “they” didn’t. Slaves certainly didn’t endure the lash of the of the whip out of a sense of service and sacrifice for us. That is one of the reasons slavery is so evil; it isn't voluntary. Suffice it to say that if that line had come out of a different man’s mouth it would not be nearly so well-received. Nor did those immigrants make their sacrifices for “us.” They made them for themselves, for their own pursuit of happiness, for their families.

This is not to say we do not benefit from the sweat of their brows and the shedding of their blood, but Obama’s rhetorical ambition seems broader than that insight. He wants to forge a new sense of collective identity. There are aspects of that effort that are admirable or defensible, to be sure. Don't we conservatives lament a lost sense of citizenship and the erosion of a common culture? But too often he comes across as wanting to take that collective vision and drape it over individualism and enterprise like a wet blanket. The pursuit of individual prosperity is not selfish and the effort to defend it is neither a tired dogma nor a childish thing. I often get the sense that President Obama doesn't see it that way, never more so than today.

Update: Yes, I know that Obama also flubbed the number of presidents who've taken the inaugural oath. Thanks for the 12 trillion—give or take—emails.

01/20 07:09 PMShare