Well if he did, this reporter is not one of them. "Grownups" aren't this smarmy. I actually thought this was satire at first, but she is apparently serious. And if I may interject a non-political note into politics, the linked jpg would contradict her "...and people cleaned up after themselves" comment.
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http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/21/article-0-03203EA4000005DC-489_634x414.jpghttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aK_xDsz_gd.8#Obama Brings the Grownups Back to Washington: Margaret Carlson
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Commentary by Margaret Carlson
Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- After the first glimpse of Michelle Obama in sunny yellow going to pray at St. John’s Church, after Barack Obama paused on the Capitol steps to gaze on thousands of small flags held aloft by a sea of humanity, after the million- plus crowd had maintained a communal kindness for hours -- after all that, people mostly picked up after themselves. The local NBC station reported Tuesday night that the Mall was cleaner than anyone might have expected.
That was the first act in the new era of responsibility that the president called for in a speech that sacrificed the rhetorical heights he usually reaches for cold, stark reality.
Inaugurations often get presidents swinging for history’s fences. They speak to posterity, bypass the living, and are so crammed with generalities that you need carbon dating to know when they took place.
Obama’s was filled with the kind of substance usually reserved for the State of the Union:
“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together,” he said. We will “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.”
And by the way, he’s going to end the war in Iraq and bring peace to our enemies who will “unclench” their fists.
He nodded to the historic nature of his presidency when he noted that “a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”
Grow Up
At its core, the speech was an invitation to grow up, fast. “Set aside childish things,” he lectured, as former President George W. Bush looked on. Obama graciously thanked Bush for his service even as he ushered out the substitute teacher who had let the class run wild.
The permanent teacher, of stern demeanor and withering gaze, announced that there will be homework, no grading on a curve, and a change of curriculum.
“We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals,” he said in a rebuke to former Vice President Dick Cheney, sitting in a wheelchair, looking like Mr. Potter, the greedy banker in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Science will be restored “to its rightful place” and government will resume regulating. Our financial crisis reminds us, he said, that “without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.”
Market Plunge
Not that we needed a reminder. As Obama spoke, the markets plummeted, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 300 points, its worst Inauguration Day performance. Citigroup Inc. is being broken into two pieces with no assurance that either will survive.
To the leader who should have been regulating the reckless, selfish financial buccaneers, Obama scolded, “A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”
He’s likely to reverse course entirely, step up regulation and spend yet more money than the $700 billion Bush asked for to shore up the financial system.
Franklin Roosevelt took extraordinary measures to halt an actual catastrophe. Obama is training a howitzer on a looming one. He will either bankrupt us or save us. Sometimes it seems he’s playing the game 10 levels above everyone else, with Congress and Lawrence Summers and the rest of the Cabinet so much human window dressing for a man with a high IQ and pitch- perfect temperament. Maybe he can defy the paradox that often finds brilliance inversely proportional to judgment.
Somber Chief
Obama was steady to the point of somber all day, relieved briefly when he hugged his daughters or got out of his armored limousine to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and waltzed with his wife.
The rest of the time he looked like a man with an overflowing in-box conscious he was wasting time. If he could have eaten at his desk instead of dining in Statuary Hall, he would have. There was no way to sneak out for a smoke, let alone sneak a look at his BlackBerry. The Secret Service wants him to get rid of it.
Obama moved swiftly during his first moments in the Oval Office on the small things that can mean a lot. A mayor proves his mettle early by repairing potholes, a president by repairing a system rigged against the little guy.
Frozen Salaries
Obama froze staff salaries over $100,000, demanded compliance with the Freedom of Information Act to force openness and accountability, halted Bush’s in-process executive orders that favor industry, and issued an ethics policy strict enough to curl a lobbyist’s hair.
If forcing those in charge to play by the rules renews faith in government, he may be the first president to reach a 99 percent approval rating.
On Inauguration Day, Obama spoke to the urgency of the moment, looking not to have his name etched in marble but rather to see it in the next 100 days affixed to legislation he believes will revive the American economy.
He’s been given a wide berth, not just by those who came to Washington’s Woodstock but by Republicans like Senator John McCain, for whom Obama held a dinner.
The danger is that Obama will be so eager for a Washington consensus that he’ll end up being too conventional. Some fret he won’t be liberal enough. We can endure the rockiness of a transformation. We’re in deep trouble without one.
(Margaret Carlson, author of “Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House” and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net
