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Jewish World Review January 20, 2009 / 24 Teves 5769 How Conservatives Should Celebrate the Inauguration By David Horowitz
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place
where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our
founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our
democracy, tonight is your answer."
How should conservatives think about these events?
First we have to recognize and then understand that whatever happens in
the Obama presidency, this Inauguration Day is a watershed moment in the
history of America and a remarkable event in the history of nations, and
thus a cause for all of us who love this country, conservative and
liberal, Democrat and Republican, to celebrate.
Second, in order to do this as conservative -- as conservatives who have
been through the culture wars — we need to get past the mixed feelings
we will inevitably have as the nation marks its progress in moving away
from the racial divisions and divisiveness of the past. These feelings
come not from resistance to the change, but from the knowledge that this
celebration should have taken place decades ago and that its delay was
not least because our opponents saw political advantage in playing the
race card against us and making us its slandered targets.
If we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday at a time of presidential
inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and
not to the Democratic congress of the Carter years, which rejected it.
If Americans now have accepted an African American to lead their country
in war and peace that is in part because an hysterically maligned
Republican made two African Americans his secretaries of state. And if,
after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts, race has continued to be a
divisive factor in our politics over the last forty years that is
because the generation of Sharpton and Jackson and their liberal
supporters have made it so. What conservatives need to recognize in
getting past these feelings (and therefore to celebrate) is that because
of this political reality it is only they themselves who could end it.
Third, as conservatives who embrace the institutions our founders
created we need to separate the two roles of the presidency — symbolic
and political. Today the symbolic role takes precedence and we need to
appreciate the specific aspects of that symbolism in the new presidency
of Barack Obama, and put aside our anticipations of the policies he may
later put in place. There will be time enough for that.
The Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln memorial was given the theme
"We Are One," which continued the unity theme of Obama's presidential
campaign. This theme has a special resonance for this moment in our
history when we are more divided as a nation than at any time since the
Civil War. In his victory speech on November 4th, Obama said that his
victory was "the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat
and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay,
straight, disabled and not disabled — Americans who sent a message to
the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a
collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be,
the United States of America!"
Rich and poor, black and white, we are one — the Inauguration
Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial was designed to dramatize this idea.
In his own speech at Celebration the president-elect paid specific
tribute to Lincoln for saving the union, and to Martin Luther King for
dreaming of a nation united beyond race. There were more black faces on
the stage of this celebration and more black faces in the hundreds of
thousands who attended it than at any time for any inauguration-related
event in the nation's history. This was already a testament to Obama's
success in advancing his vision.
Barack Obama is the head of a party whose leaders have accused the
outgoing president and his Republican Party of betraying their own
country by waging an illegal, aggressive and unnecessary war and in the
process destroying its Constitution and the liberties it guarantees. By
contrast, in his victory speech in November, Barack Obama repeated his
pledge to be president of all Americans, liberals and conservatives,
Democrats and Republicans, and thanked the American troops whom a
Republican president had sent to Afghanistan and Iraq in these words:
"Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking
up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their
lives for us."
In the speech announcing his economic stimulus package Obama
deliberately passed up the golden opportunity it presented to blame the
biggest financial disaster in the nation's history on Republicans, as
Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders would inevitably have done.
At the "We Are One" celebration, orchestrated by his team, the script
that was given to liberal actress Marisa Tomei read a passage from
Ronald Reagan's inaugural which paid tribute to him as a leader who
preached tolerance and compassion and a united nation. Another actor
read similar sentiments from Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower's
Farewell Address without so much as mentioning its famous admonitions
about the "military-industrial complex," as a Democrat invariably would.
Liberal actor Jack Black then paid tribute to another Republican hero,
Teddy Roosevelt, as America's pioneer environmentalist, and Tiger Woods
presented himself as the proud scion of a military family, praising his
family's service and paying tribute to America's armed forces. Even the
music was inclusive with Country and Western singer Garth Brooks playing
an extended set.
In his appointments, Obama has also pursued the national unity theme,
ceding to Republicans vital positions as heads of his National Security
team, and to conservatives and centrists the key positions on his
economic team. As his Secretary of State and his chief of staff he has
appointed two Democrats prominently identified with support for the Iraq
war, the most divisive national issue since Vietnam, and one over which
much of the leadership of the Democratic Party, including its standard
bearers in the last two presidential elections, played disgraceful
roles.
These appointments are not merely symbolic gestures but solid
commitments to policies that are at least centrist and do not take
America's world leadership lightly. Naturally, Obama has made
appointments — and policy commitments — to the left as well.
Conservatives should and will be watching these, opposing those which
are destructive to the national interest. Conservatives will also
recognize that having lost the election, these battles will not be
easily won.
But on this Inauguration Day, before the onset of these political
battles, it is important for conservatives to focus on what has already
been gained in political terms by symbolism of Obama's election and the
decisions he has made.
It is conservatives who should be especially appreciative of the dual
nature of the American presidency, as conceived by the Founders, which
differs from parliamentary systems, where the Prime Minister is the
political head of his party and the political ruler of nation. In
parliamentary systems such as England's, it is the Crown which is the
nation embodied, and whose wearer is the figure around whom its citizens
rally, and whom they serve in time of war.
It is the Crown function of the American presidency which the
Inauguration Ceremony celebrates. Only time will tell how successfully
Obama manages to unite the nation in the face of the crises and enemies
which confront it. But right now with 78% approval ratings — and thus
even the majority support of conservatives and Republicans — he has
made an important start. Symbolically, America is united around his
ascension to the White House. This ascension has political implications,
whose implications — for the moment at least — are quite large.
All over the country Americans have invested their hopes in Obama's
ability to pull his country together to face its challenges. Among these
Americans are millions — most likely tens of millions — who have never
identified with their government before, who felt "outside" the system
they regarded as run by elites, who ascribed its economic troubles to
the greedy rich, who bought the Jackson-Sharpton canard that America was
a racist society and they were locked out, who would have scorned the
term "patriot" as a compromise with such evils, and who turned their
backs on America's wars.
But today celebrating their new president are millions of Americans who
never would have dreamed of celebrating their president before. Millions
of Americans — visible in all their racial and ethnic variety at the
Lincoln Memorial on Sunday — have begun to feel a patriotic stirring
because they see in this First Family a reflection of themselves.
The change is still symbolic and may not last. A lot depends on what
President Obama will do, which is not a small question given how little
is still known about this man and how little tested he remains. Some of
this patriotism may be of the sunshine variety- in for a day or a
season, when the costs are not great. Or, more cynically: In to show
that their hatred for America is really just another form of political
"dissent." Yet whatever the nature of these changes they cannot for now
be discounted. Consider: When President Obama commits this nation to war
against the Islamic terrorists, as he already has in Afghanistan, he
will take millions of previously alienated and disaffected Americans
with him, and they will support our troops in a way that most of his
party has refused to support them until now. When another liberal, Bill
Clinton went to war from the air, there was no anti-war movement in the
streets or in his party's ranks to oppose him. That is an encouraging
fact for us in the dangerous world we confront.
If it seems unfair that Barack Obama should be the source of a new
patriotism - albeit of untested mettle — life is unfair. If the Obama
future is uncertain and fraught with unseen perils, conservatives can
deal with those perils as they come. What matters today is that many
Americans have begun to join their country's cause, and conservatives
should celebrate that fact and encourage it. What matters now is that
the American dream with its enormous power to inspire at home and abroad
is back in business. What it means is that the race card has been played
out and America can once again see itself — and be seen — for what it
is: a land of incomparable opportunity, incomparable tolerance, and
justice for all. Conservative values — individual responsibility, equal
opportunity, racial and ethnic pluralism, and family — are now
symbolically embedded in the American White House. As a result a great
dimension of American power has been restored. Will these values be
supported, strengthened, put into practice? It is up to us to see that
they are.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor David Horowitz is editor of Front Page Magazine and the author of several books, including, most recently, "Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) To comment, please click here. © 2009, David Horowitz |
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