Frothy Paradise

This veiled quality suffused the entire address, whose central motif was stated early on: “The time has come to put away childish things … to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history.” The distinct echo of Lincoln’s “the better angels of our nature” helped to soften the implication that the last eight years belong to our worse history, under a president famous for his childish pursuits (as one of Bush’s own advisers once asked, “What kind of male obsesses over his bike-riding time, other than Lance Armstrong or a 12-year-old boy?”). Yet there was no triumphalism in this; there was, rather, a note of sombre regret. It was necessary for Obama to announce to both the United States and the rest of the world (and his inaugural was directed, unusually, at least as much to the foreign as to the domestic audience) that on Tuesday the Bush era had ended and that America, after a long, unhappy detour in the wilderness, was returning to its better history. Since inaugural addresses are by tradition high-toned, bipartisan affairs, this was an immensely difficult feat to bring off with grace. What needed to be said had to be phrased in language as well-worn and conventional as possible, to give the illusion of smooth continuity between Obama’s speech and those of past presidents…