On this Second Inauguration: Our Chance to Hope Again

Monday, January 21, 2013 - 7 AM:
As I'm about to begin the fifth year of my blog on this morning of Barack Obama's second Inauguration (held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birth, a most appropriate and fitting confluence), I feel I should write something so powerful, so moving, so wise, nothing anyone ever writes about this day will even come close.

But anyone who regularly reads my blog knows that's probably not going to happen.  What I plan to do on this most auspicious day is to record the small stuff and leave the big stuff to the writerly biggies.  This will be a happy post, since this is a happy day for me.  (If even reading those few words sends the heat rising to the top of your head and you're threatening to blow, well, buh bye.  We'll talk again some time.)

(7:10 AM:  Joe Scarborough just said, "I don't want to be known as the conservative party or the moderate party, I just don't want to be known as the stupid party".  A delicious example of Joe's inability to speak in sentences that don't include the word "I", making the whole sentence double-funny. Nothing to do with today's festivities, just an aside.  We'll move on.)

I can barely conjure up how I felt on the day of Obama's first Inauguration, but I can go back and read that first blog post and there it is.  I can go back to the second and the third and the fourth anniversaries of that big day as well to see how I felt each time it rolled around.

And today, after more than a year of much wringing of hands, going between high hilarity (the Republican presidential candidates, one and all) to My God, Romney/Ryan could win and ruin everything, my president, Barack Obama, is about to re-enact the official swearing-in as the next and current president of the United States. (Re-enacted because January 20 fell on a Sunday this year and apparently we're not allowed to inaugurate on the Sabbath. But the president has to be sworn in on January 20, no matter what, so Chief Justice Roberts did the honors yesterday in a private ceremony (except for the cameras) and today it's being repeated at the Big HooHaw, anti-climactic as it might seem to the purists--who probably aren't going to be pleased about anything today, anyway.)

And, of course, there's Joe Biden--the icing on the cake.  Four more years of Joe--could I get more giddy?

11:50 AM.  Barack Obama has just taken the oath of office again and now he is giving his inaugural address.

12:12 PM.  I am moved to tears.   It was a speech to remember.

And now I'm weeping again, as Kelly Clarkson sings "My Country Tis of Thee."

And again, as Richard Blanco reads his splendid poem, "One Today".

And Beyonce sings the National Anthem. . .

And now the benediction by Pastor Luis Leon.  A perfect bookend to Medgar Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams' Invocation.

(Okay, before you ask. . .I, the professed heathen, have no real problem with invocations and benedictions at government functions.  I may not understand the necessity, but I'm pretty sure a couple of simple prayers is not going to be enough to turn the government theocratic. )

And after an hour or so, it's done.  We have a president (and a vice president) for four more years.  In my case, I have the president (and the vice president) I wanted to have, but because we have elections that aren't completely off the wall there are some people who can't say that.  I've been there before and now I'm not. That means I'm happier than they are today, but never fear--if I live long enough, they will have their turn.  (Not that they'll deserve it, damn them.  Smiley face)

3:55 PM.  The president and the First Lady have made their stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue and are now back in their limousine, and I have to admit, I'm relieved.  I've never seen so many Secret Service agents in one place.  I'm sure there were sharpshooters stationed up on the roofs.  (I wish it weren't so, but in these times, with this president, we have reason to worry.)

We'll have four more years to debate the good and the bad of this presidency.  Time enough to start it up in the days to come.  I reserve today for celebration.  And tomorrow and tomorrow.

I'm that happy. 

 It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm. 

President Barack Obama, Inaugural speech, January 21, 2013.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog, as always)

War and Remembrance

Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
Louis D. Brandeis


As politicians go, John Conyers is a good man. And, as with so many good people who work passionately toward a more just world, he's had his share of hostile enemies. His ongoing quest for answers about the Bush Administration's murky and undoubtedly illegal maneuverings has earned him a special place in the hearts and minds of that loyal corps of screwballs who still work at protecting Bush's legacy. They'd like to see him six feet under. But he's not going anywhere. He's on a mission, and there are bastions of citizen bloggers who are cheering him on.

I don't know how I missed "Why We Have to Look Back", the column he wrote in the Washington Post last week. I just caught up with it this morning, thanks to those bloggers, and again I have to wonder why something this important hasn't been talked about by the TV pundits, who spent so much time jawing about Rod Blagojevich's hair, the First Lady's dress designers, and Caroline Kennedy's unfortunate over-use of "You know. . .".

Conyers was announcing the release of a 486-page report entitled "Reining in the Imperial Presidency", detailing the many legitimate instances of legal and ethical abuses by the Bush Administration. The report offered these immediate and important suggestions for remedies:

"First, Congress should continue to pursue its document requests and subpoenas that were stonewalled under President Bush. Doing so will make clear that no executive can forever hide its misdeeds from the public.

Second, Congress should create an independent blue-ribbon panel or similar body to investigate a host of previously unreviewable activities of the Bush administration, including its detention, interrogation and surveillance programs. Only by chronicling and confronting the past in a comprehensive, bipartisan fashion can we reclaim our moral authority and establish a credible path forward to meet the complex challenges of a post-Sept. 11 world.

Third, the new administration should conduct an independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities. Just this week, in the pages of this newspaper, a Guantanamo Bay official acknowledged that a suspect there had been "tortured" -- her exact word -- in apparent violation of the law. The law is the law, and, if criminal conduct occurred, those responsible -- particularly those who ordered and approved the violations -- must be held accountable."

Such reasonable observations. How could anybody deny their worth? He ended the piece this way:

"Some day, there is bound to be another national security crisis in America. A future president will face the same fear and uncertainty that we did after Sept. 11, 2001, and will feel the same temptation to believe that the ends justify the means -- temptation that drew our nation over to the "dark side" under the leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. If those temptations are to be resisted -- if we are to face new threats in a manner that keeps faith with our values and strengthens rather than diminishes our authority around the world -- we must fully learn the lessons of our recent past."

I don't doubt that a future president will face fear and uncertainty if another 9/11 happens in this country. I differ with the good congressman that the belief that the ends justify the means would draw a future leader to the dark side. From the day George W. Bush gave up on becoming baseball commissioner and ran for president instead; from the day Dick Cheney chose himself as GWB's running mate, those two inhabitants of the dark side burrowed even deeper into their holes. The horrific events of 9/11 gave them the leverage they needed to draw the rest of us into their lair, and damned if they didn't succeed at the worst hornswoggling this country has ever seen.

Now we're all coming into the light again and we find ourselves so dirty, so poor, so exhausted from eight years on the dark side, all we want is a good, hot meal and a siesta in the sun.

But somebody has to go back in and get the bad guys--even if those bad guys are of our own making. I can't do it alone and neither can you, but if Conyers the Dragon Slayer says he can, what fool would stand in his way?

Ramona