Early signs are promising
Last week I joined some two million other people on Washington DC's mall to witness President Barack Obama's inauguration. I use "witness" here in its broadest sense. From my vantage point 15 blocks to the west I could not actually see the Capitol, let alone the ceremony, though I did have a good view of one of the many giant video screens that filled the three kilometres between the new president and the Lincoln Memorial.
The oddest moment of the day came shortly after the ceremony ended. As the throng slowly shuffled towards the handful of Metro stations outside the inaugural security zone we looked up to see the military helicopter bearing former President George W. Bush on the first leg of his journey back to Texas.
Faces turned upwards and after a moment watching the helicopter slowly make its way over our heads hundreds of people spontaneously waved and chanted "Bye-Bye!" in the sarcastic, sing-song tone children use when banishing an unwanted playmate.
What must Bush have thought as he made that final aerial pass over the exiting multitude? He had just sat in the cold, listening as the new president articulately and decisively rejected both his administration and his very governing philosophy. From his vantage point just over Obama's left shoulder he watched as an almost unimaginable sea of people roared their approval.
Knowing that his own inaugurals were, at best, one-tenth this size a more reflective man might have used the time to ponder the meaning of that crowd. What, he might ask, have I done to make so many people yearn so deeply for something so different?
It is difficult to see the celebrations that greeted the Obama presidency (so well-behaved that the Washington DC police reported making not a single arrest) as anything but a rejection of the last eight years and a collective expression of hope for America's future.
But whose hope? And what future? National elections in America are won by assembling broad coalitions that cut across differences of race, class and ideology, but no president can govern in a way that will please everyone who voted for him. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both proved to be far more pragmatic leaders than many of their supporters hoped for. George W. Bush ran as the candidate of compassion and advocated a "humble" foreign policy, but governed as a rigid ideologue with little patience for diplomacy or dissent. With that in mind, can these first days offer any clues about how President Obama may differ from candidate Obama? Perhaps.
Obama's first foreign policy moves differ notably from his recent predecessors'. The supplementing of Hillary Clinton at the State Department with two big-name special envoys: George Mitchell for the Middle East and Richard Holbrooke for Pakistan and Afghanistan, sends the message that foreign affairs matter a great deal to this administration, but that the President does not want to spend too much of his own time on them.
Historically, we have seen weak secretaries of state appointed by presidents signalling a focus on domestic affairs (such as Warren Christopher during Bill Clinton's first term) or presidents who wanted to handle foreign policy themselves (Dean Rusk under John Kennedy, for example). The appointment of a strong secretary (such as James Baker) usually signals an engaged and active president hoping to concentrate on world affairs.
With Obama we appear to have something else entirely: a president who believes a strong secretary of state can, under his broad direction, act in his stead, making diplomacy central to his administration even as she frees the president to focus mainly on home affairs.
This, I suspect, is the real reason why Hillary Clinton got the job. She, like Obama, is a bona fide global figure, commanding instant attention in a way none of the other people mentioned for State (John Kerry, Bill Richardson, Chuck Hagel) could hope to. The appointment of Mitchell and Holbrooke - America's most successful diplomatic troubleshooters of the last generation - as special envoys reinforces this: serious people, with big reputations, tasked to handle the big jobs.
Last week's crowd on the mall was astonishing, even inspiring. But for any sane man taking the oath of office it ought also to have been a bit intimidating. When two million people are willing to stand for hours in freezing weather because, in many cases, they felt a need to be a part of this event it goes without saying that they are expecting a lot.
Gordon Robison is a writer and commentator based in Burlington, Vermont. He has lived in and reported on the Middle East for two decades.
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