Historian David Kennedy on Obama’s Speech
“No-drama-Obama” lived up to his name. His inaugural speech had little soaring lyricism, but was infused with a reassuring sense of sobriety and composure. He struck a no-nonsense, let’s-get-down-to-work note that was arguably the perfect pitch for this fearful moment.
The speech also reflected a sense of history, not only in the ritual references to struggling ancestors and the sacrifices of war, but especially in its insistence that “we remain a young nation,” still on its journey (a word the president invoked three times) to a destiny yet unfulfilled.
Ideas about youth and the infinite promises of the future are part of our national mythology. But in what was perhaps his most sobering passage, Mr. Obama said that “the time has come to set aside childish things.” That’s another way of saying that our self-congratulatory folklore about youthful innocence also implies immaturity — and that in the next chapter of our ongoing national narrative we will be obliged to shoulder the burdens of adulthood. Now there’s a truly audacious hope, and a timely one, too.
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The speech also reflected a sense of history, not only in the ritual references to struggling ancestors and the sacrifices of war, but especially in its insistence that “we remain a young nation,” still on its journey (a word the president invoked three times) to a destiny yet unfulfilled.
Ideas about youth and the infinite promises of the future are part of our national mythology. But in what was perhaps his most sobering passage, Mr. Obama said that “the time has come to set aside childish things.” That’s another way of saying that our self-congratulatory folklore about youthful innocence also implies immaturity — and that in the next chapter of our ongoing national narrative we will be obliged to shoulder the burdens of adulthood. Now there’s a truly audacious hope, and a timely one, too.