Obama Is First Independent President: John Heilemann
The 55 inaugural addresses before the one Barack Obama will deliver next week have run the gamut from poetic (rarely) to prosaic and platitudinous (often), but all have shared a common premise: the promise of newness. Though claims of fresh starts and clean breaks are de rigueur for incoming presidents of both parties, the Democrats have tended to be more explicit--and extravagant--about it. Franklin Roosevelt spoke of "writing a new chapter in our book of self-government," John Kennedy of "creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law." Jimmy Carter said his election augured "a new beginning, a new dedication within our government, and a new spirit among us all." Bill Clinton proclaimed (redundantly) in his first inaugural that "a new season of American renewal has begun," and in his second he uncorked a veritable neoteric orgy: heralding the coming of "a new century in a new millennium ... on the edge of a bright new prospect in human affairs"; calling for a "new vision of government, a new sense of responsibility, a new spirit of community"; intoning that "the promise we sought in a new land we will find again in a land of new promise"--invoking that final phrase five times for good measure.
Obama, of course, will not need to strain so hard to cloak himself in the aura of novelty (though his people apparently aren't taking any chances--the event's official theme, borrowed from the Gettysburg Address, is "A New Birth of Freedom"). As much as the country has grown accustomed to seeing Obama's mug on their TV screens, the sight of a black man taking the oath of office still promises to shock. But the signifiers of Obama's newness extend far beyond his race: They are generational, temperamental, intellectual, experiential. He has no real precedent as an occupant of the Oval Office.
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New York Magazine | January 12, 2009 09:58 AM