Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office today as the nation’s 44th president — and the nation’s first black chief executive — and told Americans shaken by economic despair and war that shared sacrifice would be required to draw the nation back to prosperity and peace.
“Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed,” Obama declared in a ringing inaugural address. “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America.”
One thing about Obama, he has opponents who are [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAp6YAPtC2c&eurl=http://doubleplusundead.mee.nu/will_mccain-palin_supporters_act_the_same_way]a lot more civilized[/url] than Bush had. that goes a long way to setting a new tone in DC.
I believe that the single best choice for the cause of the problem that our economy faces is DEBT. Consumption is fun and glamorous whereas Saving is painful and dull. So what are we told is our salvation: more DEBT. In fact, trillions of it. Go figure. Statmann
Very interesting reminder!
Thank God some still have class. Thank God Bush and his supporters know how to forgive, forget, and move on for the sake of the commonweal, and as Our Lord would want His followers to do.
What an example of Christian charity and witness from Bush! What an 8-year period of non-stop unfair attacks on a man who sincerely and rightly did his best for his country, and under very challenging circumstances!!
Fr. Kingsley+
I am refering to the Jeffersonian link (#1) on the physical attacks and disruption at the Bush 2001 inuaguration. Imagine how the press and the world would have reacted if anyone as much as said some unholy words against Obama today at the Mall!!???
Bush has been a class act. He treated Obama much better than he was treated. The Democrats never forgave Bush for winning in the first place, in their eyes he was always illigitimate, and they always wanted him to fail even if it hurt the country.
I hope and pray that the country prospers under Obama, but I fear much of the Democratic agenda.
Br Michael,
Wall Street clearly shares your concern. Down 300+ points today, and the 8000 “support level” broken.
Usually, when talking about “shared sacrifice” that means you want the other guy to give up something. Accordingly, the key test will be whether President Obama calls on his supporters to share the sacrifice as well. If you want to look for a sign – the ‘reverse canary in a coal mine’ – look to whether the auto unions have to make significant concession.
Interesting during the campaign using the President’s full name, Barack Hussein Obama, was an insult and not allowed. Senator McCain even through his own supporters under the bus for daring to use then-Senator Obama’s full name. But the LA Times has no qualms using his name in the very first three words of their article. Hypocrites.
“Remaking America”.
Those two words (emphasizing just one: “remaking”) is why I am not confident about the direction Pres Obama wants to take us.
Definitely, Rick. This was a president who has said the Constitution was a “seriously flawed” document; that the only rights spelled out were “negative rights”; and who criticized the Supreme Court for not being daring enough to go beyond the limits imposed by the Constitution in the Civil Rights cases.
How about, revitalize America; return America to the values of the Founding Fathers; language like that. Remake sounds too much like “I don’t like America, and I’m going to make it in my image, and fundamentally change it.”
I bet Obama and his staff won’t find keys pried off type writers, porn left in the copy machines and childish vandalism in the executive offices. The Republicans did not boo Clinton at Bush’s Inauguration. Lastly during these hard economic times I have yet to read or hear an NPR story about the waste of money for an Inauguration.
But the press ripped into Bush for the cost of his second inauguration, which was much less than this one for The One.
But, hey, there’s no double standard or media bias, right? (/sarcasm)
Although it is unfortunate in the way Bush was treated, remember that lots of people thought the election was stolen. Florida wasn’t a great example of post-partisan behavior. The Supreme Court made a questionable decision. Bush wanted to be a compassionate conservative but pretty much went hard right, playing to his base.
Right after Obama was elected, however, he met with many Republicans – last week he met with conservative commentators. He’s playing less to his base.
I do agree that Obama is pretty left. He’ll do it by staying connected with his enemies, however (which will be interpreted as being centrist). One of the cardinal rules of community organizing is that “there are no permanent enemies” which tends to defy the manichean worldview that dominates the conservative mindset.
#10 – in academic circles, saying the constitution is “flawed” isn’t news. That’s why there was the bill of rights: the founders thought it was flawed itself. Human beings, themselves, are flawed. That’s why we also allow for states to amend the constitution.
“negative” rights is a technical term, not a normative one. In political theory jargon it does not translate into “bad.”
#7, the unions have been making concessions for many years….
As far as being civilized, I think Bush’s supporters decided just to leave the city. I’ve met a few that just couldn’t watch.
John, what people think does not excuse rude boorish behavior.
John, in #13, as you have stated in other threads, people don’t get the facts about Obama, they don’t read his speeches, they don’t know him. The facts are that the Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida, because it was only being done in selected counties that were heavily Democratic, not the whole state, and the standards being used for determining if a ballot was to be counted were different in each county. Please remember that the vote on this in the S. Court was 7-2, which included 3 of the more liberal members. Also, the facts are that NYT, Wash Post, and CBS or NBC paid for a recount and Bush won by over 500 votes. So those who still cling to that matra that the 2000 election was stolen are not facing facts, like you would otherwise want them to do, n’est ce pas? Also, fairly soon after taking office, Bush was faced with 9/11. If you mean by “going hard” right he supported defense of the country and the military, I agree with you. But I disagree with him being hard right on social programs and government spending; he was anything but playing to his base in that arena and it cost the Republicans big time in 2008, which cost will continue for some time in the future.
Remember the context: there was a lot of animosity in Washington about the way Clinton was being treated around the Lewinisky event.
There should have been a statewide manual recount. Perhaps Bush would have won anyway, but allowing the process to continue might have changed the attitude of millions of Americans. Including myself. I wouldn’t have minded that Bush won, if the Supreme Court hadn’t meddled.
It seems that Bush probably would have won in several recounts (not all). Still, given the confusion in the butterfly ballots, where plenty of Jews were voting for Buchanan, we have the makings for a population that believed that Bush won wrongly. It’s unfortunate. If Obama had won by fewer percentage points, it might have been different. It might also have been different of Republicans had had the energy to support their own party more fervently.
John, I remember the context. The U.S. Supreme Ct did what it did, because the FL Supreme Ct (all Democratic appointees) mettled in the first place, setting up these recounts – which were against FL election laws – in a Federal election. U.S. Supremes did not like FL Supremes usurping its power to determine rules of Federal elections. Dems went to court first to FL state court. Repubs went after that to Federal court for relief from the different standards being applied in different counties. All of that is context of U.S. Supremes intervention.
The situation was that Al Gore requested a recount ONLY in the three disputed counties, minus the overseas military votes. Republicans countered with a request for a state-wide recount, including the overseas military vote. The bickering went to the Supreme Court of Florida, which decided that any recount had to meet the State Constitutional deadline. The Dems then asked the SCOTUS to intervene, but in the end the State SC won out, because it was a STATE issue. After the initial recounts, Bush was still declared the winner by the deadline.
After the deadline, the media outlets, including CNN, conducted a state-wide recount and found Bush won by something like 570 votes.
The [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE.html?ex=1232773200&en=df58b2c90f1d1171&ei=5070]New York Times[/url] (yikes! I’m quoting the NYT!) reported:
[blockquote]A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year’s presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.
In a finding rich with irony, the results show that even if Mr. Gore had succeeded in his effort to force recounts of undervotes in the four Democratic counties, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia, he still would have lost, although by 225 votes rather than 537.[/blockquote]
[url=http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/jan-june01/recount_4-3.html]PBS’ NewsHour[/url] states:
[blockquote]In the first full study of Florida’s ballots since the election ended, The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue, using standards that would have allowed even faintly dimpled “undervotes” — ballots the voter has noticeably indented but had not punched all the way through — to be counted.[/blockquote]
And I could quote tons more just from one Google search of 2000 election Florida recount.
So, come on, let’s stop this idiot parroting that ‘Bush stole the election’. Even the liberal media says, “Bush won fair and square”.
Jim Elliott
Florida
I’m not arguing whether or not Bush stole the election. I’m arguing that it was contested, and for good reasons.
Bush should have let the process continue so that he could have been found as president in any case. He didn’t. It would have diminished the belief – at the time – that he didn’t deserve the election.
The Florida State Constitution set a deadline for the election results and recounts. That is a Constitutional deadline, that cannot be ‘voted an extension’. The US SC cannot over-ride a State’s Constitution. Even if both parties wanted it, it cannot have been done without an amendment to the constitution, which could not have been secured in that amount of time, given Florida’s constitutional laws regarding constitutional amendments.
What ever happend in Forida does not excuse the boorish, rude partisan way Bush has been treated. I am frustrated by the results of the last election. That does not allow me to be rude or nasty to President Obama.