Better dead than red, revisited

Please excuse my flipping this post forward; it got buried...

Early this year, in a 'come to it cold' look at John F. Kennedy's inaugural address on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, I was struck by its beleaguered tone -- its somber sense that freedom and even human life itself were on a double knife's edge of communist domination or nuclear war.

In Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, I just happened on a smidgeon of context:

In 1961 Americans were asked whether the country should "fight an all-out nuclear war rather than live under communist rule." Eighty-seven percent of men said yes, while "only 75 percent of the women felt that way -- proof that women are pacifist only in comparison to men of the same time and society (location 11629).

Ask not what was in prior drafts (oh, all right, do...)

On Fallows' blog earlier this month, I took a "coming to it cold" look at JFK's inaugural address and noted, among other things, its beleaguered tone (Kennedy begins by warning that both freedom and humanity itself are in danger of extinction) and its relentlessly global focus -- there is not a mention of domestic issues, and only the final segment of the speech is directed to "my fellow Americans" as opposed to various foreign audiences.

In the current New Yorker, Obama speechwriter Adam Frankel recounts a remarkable tale of the discovery last month of probably the earliest known draft of Kennedy's famous speech, composed by Theodore Sorenson (Frankel relates that Sorenson and Kennedy seem to have worked concurrently on separate drafts, which they began to meld the day after the newly discovered Sorenson draft was created).  Both points above get some reinforcement from Frankel's narrative. First, the strictly international focus:

In “Kennedy,” Sorensen wrote that J.F.K. thought his early drafts focussed too heavily on domestic issues: “We must begin by facing the fact that history’s most abundant economy has slackened its growth to a virtual halt. That the world’s most productive farmers have only suffered for their success. . . . That too many of our cities are sinking into squalor.” This and other passages from the January 14th version also give the impression that Kennedy and Sorensen were still writing in the language of the campaign...

Clouds over Camelot

On Fallows' blog today, a close look at JFK's inaugural address:

The...surprise is that Kennedy's fabled optimism, and idealism, and literally shoot-the-moon can-do-ism, is tempered by, or rather grounded in, a sense of peril that by current standards seems almost apocalyptic.

The rest is here.

The Gospel according to Obama

Update: Original Sin at Notre Dame

Christianists insist that the United States is a Christian nation. Obama is not a Christianist. He told us in his inaugural address that "our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth." While he believes that moral values absorbed through religion have a place in the public sphere, he imposes strict ground rules on those who would invoke religious teachings:

What our deliberative, pluralistic democracy does demand is that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals must be subject to argument and amenable to reason (The Audacity of Hope).

Obama's religious allusions accordingly are usually of the most universal kind: I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper. And yet, a second look at his inaugural address made me feel that his thinking is more specifically informed by Christian scripture than I had previously believed. Early in the speech, he swerved into slightly less familiar Biblical language -- the Apostle Paul's "when I became a man, I put away childish things." The full context of that Pauline dictum, I believe, opens a window on the extent to which Obama's understanding of America's secular scriptures, the Declaration and the Constitution, are underpinned by his reading of Christian scripture.

Here is Obama's allusion to 1 Corinthians 13:

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

The call to put away childish things had a simple denotation, familiar to anyone who has followed Obama's speeches: to get past the Rovian attack politics that according to Obama have paralyzed our policymaking -- "a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism," as he put it in his March speech on race. The way he followed that thread, identifying other "childish"political tenets and practices he asked us to move past, is worth a separate post.

But here, I'm more interested in a family likeness between Obama's historiography and Paul's theology. For Paul, becoming a man means achieving, to borrow a favorite phrase of Obama's, a more perfect union:

1If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

For Paul, to become a man means to become perfect in love. It means to fulfill a human potential that can never be completely fulfilled in this life: to love God perfectly. This life is a quest for a more perfect union that will be attained in the next.

Obama, like Lincoln, and the Transcendentalists before him, and countless Americans afterward, asserts a similar movement in American history. The Declaration and the Constitution express political principles as perfect in their way (so Obama's invocations of them imply) as Paul's love. Indeed, Obama has asserted that they are in effect political translations of that love. Here's how he put it in his great speech on race in Philadelphia on March 18:

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

The title of that speech was "A More Perfect Union." The premise was that the principles expressed in the Constitution have not been fulfilled but are in process of being fulfilled -- that what distinguishes America is the country's constant progress toward fulfilling them:

This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.

In the inaugural address, Obama portrayed our progress toward realizing our ideals as being in midstream, and projected their eventual fulfillment beyond our shores to encompass the world:

And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Once again, his core message was hope. Faith. Love. Those three. Ultimately, Obama keeps it simple.

Obama responds to Osama

At one point in his inaugural address, Obama seemed to respond to a taunt from Osama bin Laden, delivered in the audiotape that was released last Wednesday. As reported by the BBC:

President Bush, the message said, was leaving his successor with a "heavy inheritance" and he doubted that the US could continue fighting al-Qaeda for decades.

"If he withdraws from the war, it is a military defeat. If he continues, he drowns in economic crisis."

Osama, who believes he brought down the Soviet Union, also thinks with some reason that he's bankrupting the U.S. To my ears, this from Obama today was an answer to the prophet of imperial overstretch:

And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Obama's Inaugural: dark skies, stark challenges

Obama's tone in his acceptance speech on Nov. 4 was somber. Today, it was almost apocalyptic -- the dangers evoked tonally overshadowing strong assertions of "yes we can" confidence. Early on, after the by-now-familiar litany of formidable challenges, he raised a stark specter:

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

That's painting it a bit dark, isn't it? Obama's long been saying that the American dream feels like it's slipping away, but I would have thought 'decline' a rather Carteresqe third rail.

Of course there was Obama's signature counterpoint of confidence:

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

But at the end, again, Obama framed "our common dangers" in the starkest terms:

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Whoa. We are facing a deeply alarming economic seize-up. But we're not exactly bleeding in the snow. Does Obama know something we don't?

In the 'yes we can' vein, there was perhaps an echo of Martin Luther King in a compressed version of Obama's familiar historical argument: that we shall overcome because we have overcome in the past, that 'courage is having been there before':

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

The perfect tense here -- "we have tasted the bitter swill...and emerged stronger" -- holds the mirror up to King looking forward from the Lincoln Memorial in 1963:

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

Obama always presents our quest for a more perfect union as being in mid-course: much injustice still to overcome, much already overcome. Here, he affirms that we have got at least some of that bitter swill digested -- leaving him free to extend King's dream of a nation free from prejudice and tribalism from the U.S. to the world.

There was also a deep confidence underlying Obama's unequivocal rejection of the Bush Administration's malign perversions of executive authority - torture, suspension of habeas, kangaroo courts -- coupled with a message to the entire world that as we reject these abuses we will reassert our leadership:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Finally, to match his raising of the threat level, Obama raised his call "change our politics" to the level of Biblical injunction:

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

We elected an adult. In the primary, Obama made the Clintons look small; in the general election, he made McCain look small. Now, he's calling on all to follow his example -- of magnanimity to opponents, focus on substantive issues, and disinterested pursuit of policies likely to work. And he's warning us: the consequences will be dire if we don't.