A skeptic at the National Mall

I will admit it: my political affinity for Barack Obama has never been entirely consistent. But I did end up voting for him, and while it was incredibly moving to see him sworn in today, I cannot help but think that this day should be as much clarity and recognition of the difficulties that lay ahead as it is celebration. Election night's spontaneity was the best place for genuine, heartfelt happiness. We have known Obama would be President since November. Today should not be considered the start of a honeymoon, but of the real difficulties and challenges that come with actually being President.

To recap: I preferred the benediction to the invocation. Lowery was inclusive, genuine, and good-natured. Warren, on the other hand, seemed neither rhetorically impressive or able to reach far beyond his usual target audience. The poem seemed out of place, especially after a well performed speech.

I emphasize well performed. Because as Obama's first speech as President rather than candidate or President-elect, I found myself dwelling as much on the elements that originally left me skeptical of Obama as on those that lead me to eventually vote for him.

Perhaps the most troubling of the themes Obama outlined in his speech is the pervasive notion that the idea of trade-offs in a time of crisis are admissions of defeat rather than acknowledgments of reality (all emphasis in the speech is mine alone).

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

Obama is right that these challenges will be met. But we will not meet them if we refuse to accept that sometimes, our hopes are too high or misplaced. For example, if we hope for peace in the world, it is not reasonable that we attempt to meet the challenge of spreading democracy or fighting terrorism with unrelenting energy. This sort of message, though, is poisonous to the political discourse of the leader even if it is the tool of a wise critic.

We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed.

Now, of course Obama is going to talk about having to make unpleasant decisions. But there is little hint to what they will be. What I found most interesting about this passage however, was how it was essentially John McCain's argument about the fundamentals of our economy being strong repackaged in a much more rhetorically effective manner. Obama's choice of the word capacity is interesting too - especially as we find it is not the lack of capacity, but overcapacity that will bedevil our plans to speed ourselves out of a recession.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

Are our memories short? Obama is careful not to mention what big plans have been so successful - each can just laugh at those misguided cynics and let their minds wander to the good old days, whatever they are for each ideology. But the fact is that cynics do remember the New Deal, and they can recall the disastrous industrial and agricultural policies that delayed recovery, even if the optimists choose only to remember fireside chats, the FDIC, and Social Security. No, the ground has not shifted beneath cynics - it has shifted beneath the idealists. The past two decades have seen their plans torn asunder by historical force and human fallibility. The plans for a free, democratic and peaceful new world order were undermined by the realities of '90s military interventionism and ultimately shattered by 9/11. The plans for then protecting that order with force to defeat terrorism have squashed the dreams of a different sort of idealists. Domestically, anyone angry at the so-called legacy of deregulation or globalization in today's economic crisis should speak to the neoliberal idealists that permeated the Clinton administration (not just the Bush administration). The universal legitimacy of freedom, democracy, capitalism, and the American way of life and the American way of leadership, are no longer unquestionable. That is the change in ground, and it strikes against ambitious American Presidents, not cynics who are skeptical of the utility of American power abroad and planners' power at home. The prosperity of our lives and the legitimacy of our values are not natural facts.

The old arguments are not necessarily those of cynics - the clash between progressive left and "laissez faire" right on economics could have easily been described as idealist as cynical. Perhaps the use of idealist divisions by politicians who know the issues better is cynicism, but that does not make cynicism manifested as criticism of these idealist positions irrelevant too. Obama delineates that there are no false choices to be made between big and small government, market and intervention, liberty and security - all that remains is for the cynics to step aside, for their criticism and reluctance are the sole obstacle between vision and reality.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

While I admire Obama's Niebuhrian rhetoric here, Obama grossly simplifies the nature of alliances and convictions. We sacrifice our convictions to maintain our alliances - the United Nations tolerated the totalitarian USSR to defeat fascism, and dictatorships to defeat communism. Nor do I particularly think Obama should dress up any of our challenges today in the garb of the simplified binary rhetoric of world war or cold war. We do not live in a world where our enemies are on one side and our friends another, nor is there any one single struggle that dominates our agenda that can sift nations in such a manner. We face a complex strategic environment where states that befriend us to solve one issue will stonewall us on others.

We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all. For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.

I do not find the call to embody the nationalist ethos as disturbing as I am sure some on the libertarian right will, not because I support blindly a government that believes the main problem with its citizens is that they are too individualist, but because this sort of rhetoric is endemic to American politics. After reading Bacevich's New American Militarism, too, one might describe wrapping policies and attitudes in battle flags as the sort of militaristic rhetoric a cynical politician might employ. More importantly, though, we see the main obstacle to success is not the failure of our policies or an overconfidence in our capabilities, but the failure of Americans to adequately embrace the attitude of optimism. It seems like a rhetorical fail-safe - criticizing or resisting any aspect of this ambitious transformation sows the seeds for its failures. Obama may support bipartisanship, but in a campaign that was based on hope, his administration will need to fight not necessarily the voices of Republicans but of doubt. It is a tough fight and not one I think is particularly wise. Because ultimately, the voice of cynicism can be a voice of reason, and we should be careful in these four years of presumed change and renewed hope about making an enemy of it.