The nation saw a very different Obama yesterday, says Paul Begala.
Back in November more than 60 million Americans thought they were voting to reelect the man who has served as our president for the past four years. Little did we know that a very different man would place his hand on the Bibles of President Lincoln and Dr. King.
Pool photo by Jonathan Ernst
President Obama’s second inaugural address marked an important departure from the tone and tenor of his first term. His speech was philosophical rather than political. He confidently took his part in a debate that stretches back centuries.
The president gave the communitarian vision in contraposition to Reagan’s anti-government individualism. He mocked the notion that an individual alone can meet and master the challenges of the 21st century as akin to sending musket-bearing militiamen to confront Hitler’s Panzers. Again and again he repeated “We the People,” citing our secular Scripture to root his call for common action. There was no mistaking the central message: an embrace of the common good and a rejection of the radical right. He even managed to dismiss both the top 1 percent and the Tea Party in one sentence: “The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.” He similarly destroyed Rep. Paul Ryan’s loathsome trope that too many Americans are “takers” rather than “makers” because they receive Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid benefits, saying those programs “do not make us a nation of takers, they free us to take the risks that make this country great.” the Daily beast.Co
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