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Obligatory inauguration post
Jan. 20th, 2009 11:08 amI was happy to have the opportunity to watch the inauguration, even though it was only possible because of a lack of work.
I thought Obama's speech was competent -- it said what needed to be said, solidified the messages of the campaign, placed our current disaster in the context of history, and did so without whipping the crowd up into a messianic frenzy. There were perhaps one-and-one-half or two applause lines in the entire thing. I admired his purpose and restraint. I may be wrong about this, but one had the sense that, with some help, he wrote the speech himself.
The Inaugural Poet, Elizabeth Alexander, was a total disappointment, however. Pallid, timid, and insignificant, she bored everyone. Her words had no substance; they were as accessible as an open door opening on nothing. When I think of the great poets available to us today -- Lyn Hejinian, Rae Armantrout, Rachel Wetzsteon -- the only reasons I can think of for the transition team's choice were that Alexander was African-American and wrote on African-American themes. With those criteria, surely bell hooks was available -- but they wouldn't have had the guts to pick her.
Many, many people -- so many as to constitute Conventional Wisdom -- have spoken of the feelings of loss and letdown which will inevitably follow this moment. Obama's speech was, among other things, an attempt to temper the inauguration's heady heights with a sense that days of compromise and sausage-making lie ahead. I have no doubt I will be disappointed, as I have been in the months leading up to the inauguration. I nonetheless hope that, when it happens, I will feel a sense of principled disagreement, rather than, as in the case of Obama's predecessor, blind, impotent rage.
I thought Obama's speech was competent -- it said what needed to be said, solidified the messages of the campaign, placed our current disaster in the context of history, and did so without whipping the crowd up into a messianic frenzy. There were perhaps one-and-one-half or two applause lines in the entire thing. I admired his purpose and restraint. I may be wrong about this, but one had the sense that, with some help, he wrote the speech himself.
The Inaugural Poet, Elizabeth Alexander, was a total disappointment, however. Pallid, timid, and insignificant, she bored everyone. Her words had no substance; they were as accessible as an open door opening on nothing. When I think of the great poets available to us today -- Lyn Hejinian, Rae Armantrout, Rachel Wetzsteon -- the only reasons I can think of for the transition team's choice were that Alexander was African-American and wrote on African-American themes. With those criteria, surely bell hooks was available -- but they wouldn't have had the guts to pick her.
Many, many people -- so many as to constitute Conventional Wisdom -- have spoken of the feelings of loss and letdown which will inevitably follow this moment. Obama's speech was, among other things, an attempt to temper the inauguration's heady heights with a sense that days of compromise and sausage-making lie ahead. I have no doubt I will be disappointed, as I have been in the months leading up to the inauguration. I nonetheless hope that, when it happens, I will feel a sense of principled disagreement, rather than, as in the case of Obama's predecessor, blind, impotent rage.
