Hendrik Hertzberg, himself formerly a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, critiques Obama’s inaugural address (text here) and concludes that it was…a mixed bag.
Some sections were turgid, Hertzberg suggests (perhaps a bit cattily):
My stylistic reservation has nothing to do with “narrative arcs” and the like; it’s about staleness of language. Lines like these—
The words [of the Presidential oath] 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.
—come dangerously close to “It was a dark and stormy night.” Also, while one might conceivably take an oath “amidst” clouds and storms, one cannot speak words “during” tides and waters. Not without gurgling, anyway.
But Hertzberg likes the approach to history he heard in the speech:
All that said, there are fine passages, and the speech makes many strong and subtle points. It improves with each rereading, as its political shrewdness and the generous liberal values that underlie it come through more clearly.
E.g.:
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled 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. For us, they fought and died in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.
The mentions of sweatshops, the lash of the whip, and Khe Sanh serve to broaden the national mythos. The struggles of labor (implicitly including organized labor) and the long history of slavery (not just its abolition) are brought fully into the official American story. The sacrifices of the soldiers sent to Vietnam are recognized and separated from the folly of the policies that sent them there—an important psychological step toward withdrawal from Iraq as well as a welcome generational marker.
And then, of course, there’s the question of Obama’s approach to the opposition:
E.J. Dionne wrote last week that “President Obama intends to use conservative values for progressive ends.” Sure enough, the speech was replete with grace notes like these:
Our journey. . . has not been the path for the faint-hearted—for those who prefer leisure over work
the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things
not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good
those values upon which our success depends—honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism—these things are old. These things are true.
a new era of responsibility
I sometimes forget—but Obama never does—that for all the brutal skirmishing, there is considerable overlap between the views of most American liberals and most American conservatives. The phrases above may “sound” conservative, but as a liberal I find them perfectly congenial, especially when served up alongside phrases like these:
choose our better history
all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness
bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions
roll back the spectre of a warming planet
Obama is unusually adept at deploying “conservative” aesthetics in the service of “liberal” goals. This is not a new phenomenon on the center-left. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of what Herbert Croly, the founding editor of The New Republic, prescribed in his hugely influential 1909 book “The Promise of American Life”: the use of “Hamiltonian means” to achieve “Jeffersonian ends.”
Anyway, it’s an interesting piece, worth reading in its entirety, and a reminder of how few good inaugural addresses there have been. Speaking of which, would you like to hear me recite Lincoln’s second inaugural? Because I can, you know.
17 comments
February 3, 2009 at 11:37 am
KRK
The nitpicking about language is wrong in at least one respect. One can speak “during” a rising tide. Those tides take their time.
February 3, 2009 at 11:42 am
Levi Stahl
Yes. Yes, we do want to hear that, Ari. And the flexibility of a blog allows it. Not a reason in the world you couldn’t have it up here tomorrow, right?
February 3, 2009 at 11:45 am
ari
I’ll have to get my stovepipe hat back from the cleaners first, Levi.
February 3, 2009 at 11:51 am
eric
We could do it in stereo. For charity.
February 3, 2009 at 11:54 am
Vance
Or antiphonally — the parallel constructions will help. “Malice toward none!” “Charity for all”. “Achieve!” “And cherish!”
February 3, 2009 at 11:56 am
Jason B.
I’m with KRK. It seems that Mr. Hertzberg has the words “during” and “beneath” confused.
February 3, 2009 at 11:58 am
Lori
Jill Lepore has a pre-inaug piece in the New Yorker on the relatively low quality of inaug addresses (Ike’s first includes a fascinating laundry list) and highlights some fine writing by Garfield. But no one can top Lincoln with his mystic cords of memory.
February 3, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Vance
Well, “during…still waters” is a problem. H is presumably reading that as an overelaboration of “during calm” — and then overstretching his criticism to take in “during rising tides” as well.
February 3, 2009 at 12:09 pm
JPool
I have mixed feeling about the way that Obama is using slavery there. As a historian (and as someone concerned about the kinds of labor conditions that we tolerate in the parts of the world that supply us with cheap raw materials) I worry about the transformation of forced labor into some kind of sacrifice for collective advancement.
At the same time, as Hertzberg says, there’s something both useful and really beautiful about integrating this history of suffering and exclusion into a collective American story. I would say this goes well beyond conventional liberalism, which is usually content to mourn the sufferings of “those poor people,” rather than claiming/recognizing it as our collective own.
February 3, 2009 at 12:14 pm
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February 3, 2009 at 12:18 pm
politicalfootball
I have to say, I was disappointed to see Obama take such a firm stand against childish things. I say: More childish things !
But I thought the passage that included this bit was very striking:
“Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”
Not give up the Constitution for the sake of expedience? What a novel idea. Can he follow that cliche by telling us that might doesn’t make right? Yes, he can: “…power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.”
But you know what? In 2009 in the United States, this stuff needs to be said.
February 3, 2009 at 12:33 pm
CCG
I’d like to hear Jackson’s second inaugural. I hear it is pretty good too
February 3, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Vance
JPool, compare
Obama’s allusion to Lincoln is pretty rich (and
And I think he’s successfully avoiding the danger you rightly see. Between the political error of remembering slavery as a inexpugnable grievance, and the historical one of eliding it, he’s taking a middle path — remembering it by integrating it into the story of how the nation was built by our (ancestors’) labors and not only our ideals. Not unslick.
February 3, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Vance
Whoops, that “(and” should have ended, “it’s not the only such allusion he’s made)”. I was thinking about how “We worship an awesome God in the blue states…” echoes “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.”
February 3, 2009 at 1:11 pm
rea
I’d like to hear Jackson’s second inaugural. I hear it is pretty good too
Nothing special:
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres24.html
February 3, 2009 at 1:20 pm
JPool
Vance,
That’s a good point about the Lincoln allusions, and I would agree that in Obama’s speech itself he avoids the dangers of turning historical suffering into mythic necessary/ultimately-all-to-the-good sacrifice. But origin myths take on a structuralist logic and power of their own. I guess what I’m more concerned about is how the implicit arguments play out down the line.
February 4, 2009 at 5:39 am
G.D.
Related:
Jill Lepore’s great essay on the general wackness of inaugural addresses, with a boffo framing device:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/12/090112fa_fact_lepore