One Brick Short

The pressure is on for Barack Obama.

Today, when he walks to the stage at his own High Noon to step up, put his down and swear-in, Mr. Obama will face the toughest task perhaps any President-elect has ever stared down.

No, I’m not talking about the economy, although that’s pressure enough for 10 or 15 presidents to take on, let alone one. Neither am I babbling about the war on terror or national security or inequality, even though any one of those issues provides enough pressure to can any candidate’s tomatoes. No, I’m talking about his speech, the Big Talk that ushers in the Obama Era.
What will he say?

For the first time ever, an American of African-American heritage is taking over the Oval Office. Much of this country was built on the back of black Americans and, finally, after 200-plus years, that’s been politically recognized. He is a living symbol of the Civil War, civil rights and all the efforts in between.

There’s some pressure for ya.

He’s a symbol of the repudiation of eight years of George W. Bush’s reign. He’s a symbol of “hope” and “change” and “yes, we can” and all that those catch phrases mean to everybody who repeated them during the election. For the most part, he’s even a repudiation of the eight years of the Clinton Administration that preceeded Bush, being as he’s talked about changing NAFTA and CAFTA and the other FTAs that were seeded during that area and bloomed during Bush.

One can only hope that Mr. Obama’s reign will be without Bush’s Star Chamber and Clinton’s Starr Report.

But what will he say?

FDR said: “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.“

JFK said: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.“

We won’t refer to Mr. Obama by his initials, so we won’t refer to Thomas Jefferson by his, either. Mr. Jefferson said in an 1801 plea for bipartisanship:  “We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.“

Gerald Ford, in taking over for Nixon, said “ My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.“

Whatever Mr. Obama says, the pressure to say the right thing must be overwhelming as is the pressure of the job he will enter. Of course, pressure works two ways, it can crush or it can heat and fuse and create diamonds.

Here’s hoping the speech, and the next four years, are gems.