I
watched President Obama's (and Vice-President Biden's) swearing-in and
inauguration today with my mother, from the dining hall of her
rehabilitation-center, where her recovery from last summer's
strokes continues. I don't know when I've ever before had tears in my eyes at a
world-historic event — at personal-historic, sure (weddings, funerals,
and so on)… but not something like this. Man! There is a heady, giddy, numbing,
eye-blinking thrill and anticipation about this, a goosebumps of witness to the
stupendous transition this step into a new administration and era it is.
But
I'll leave the commentary to the professionals; it's been all over all your
media, folks, and will be for a long, long time. Let me, instead, hang onto the
lighter-hearted giddiness of it all, and turn to one of these professionals.
Gene Weingarten's weekly column in the Washington (DC) Post magazine has the great header of
"Below the Beltway"; this past Sunday's commentary
carried the title of "The Wrong Address: An Inaugural
for the Speech-Impaired". Let me stick my neck out and quote it in full, adding of
course ©
2009 The Washington Post Company. I'd link to it here… but the Post will want you to sign up
for free membership to view the content; the link above is to Weingarten's
appearance in the St. Petersburg (FL) Times instead:
WASHINGTON
— Some people were unnerved to learn that Barack Obama has chosen a 27-year-old
speechwriter for his inaugural address. I'm not. Obama could have made a much
worse choice. He could have chosen me.
My
fellow Americans:
Four
score and seven years ago, Wilhelm
Furtwängler became conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. I
realize that's a boring fact, but I wanted to start this speech with the
"four score and seven" thing, and it turns out that 1922 was a really
uneventful year. Sorry.
Some
of you may be wondering why I stand here today in a floral dashiki,
the traditional ceremonial garb of the tribesmen of Western Africa. Well, you
can relax. I am just messing with your heads.
A
better question might be why I have just taken the oath of office with my hand
not on a Bible but on what appears to be, and in fact is, a banana cream
pie.
The
answer: Change. I promised it, and I am going to deliver it — change in all
facets of American life, including the humorless solemnity of our governmental
and financial leaders. These are the same leaders who, while wearing somber
suits and grave countenances and comporting themselves with utmost dignity,
have, for the past many years, held all our heads in the toilet and
flushed.
So,
change is good. Besides [sticking finger in pie, tasting it], I like
banana cream pie.
Today
our nation is mired in a dreadful financial crisis. What I want to tell you is
that we're in this together. I want to tell you that but cannot do so in good
conscience, because, let's face it, I've just landed a four-year, $400,000 job
with an awesome retirement plan. Plus, I've got two runaway bestsellers that
earn more royalties in one month than the equity in your mortgage. In short,
we're not exactly on equal footing: I'm on a putting green, and you are on a
carpet of marbles, ball bearings and lard. Good luck with all that.
Rest
assured, however, that I do empathize with your plight, despite what you may
have been led to believe. During the presidential election campaign, some
people got the unfortunate impression that I am an icy, aloof, emotionless
intellectual who has difficulty connecting with the concerns of everyday
people. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Ovid observed two millennia ago,
"Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim," words that
still have great
meaning to those of us with proper educations.
During
a similar financial crisis in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously told
Americans that we all had nothing to fear but fear itself. These were
wonderful, inspiring words that no one thought too hard about, which was a good
thing, because when you get right down to it, they were idiotic. Roosevelt was
addressing people facing imminent personal financial ruin, yet his consoling
mantra was basically the same as Alfred E. Neuman's:
What, me worry?
I
will not condescend to you that way. Me worry, and you should, too. Mostly, we
all need to worry about the insanely unreasonable hopes that you have invested
in me. You seem to expect me to reinvigorate the economy; repair America's
reputation at home and abroad; institute universal health care; lower taxes;
save the polar bears; heal the sick; reanimate the dead; end the madness of
robo-calls; restore the taste of the American tomato; eradicate the use of hand
dryers in all public washrooms; find a cosmetic solution to the tragedy of
teeth that look like Fig Newtons; impose enormous fines on the owners of
trembly little dogs; outlaw the wearing of Crocs; publicly denounce Ben Stein
for the objectionable, talentless, desiccated old fart he is; incarcerate
persons who use the world as their ashtray; and introduce a constitutional
amendment prohibiting, forever, the marketing of Windows Vista to the
unsuspecting.
I
cannot promise you any of that. But I can promise you this:
[presses
the pie into the face of the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
]
We're
going to have us some fun.
