Free Republic

Watching President Obama's inaugural, I was confused. It looked like a new king was being crowned. Thousands cheered, like subjects worshipping nobility. At a time when America faces unsustainable debt and terrible economic troubles, why such pomp?Maybe it's because so many people tell themselves presidents can solve any problem, like fairy-tale kings -- or gods. Before America's first inauguration, John Adams suggested George Washington be called "His Most Benign Highness." Fortunately, Congress insisted on the more modest title, "President."At his inaugural, President Obama himself said, "The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with...

All those Americans who hoped that in victory a magnanimous President would move toward reconciliation of a divided people were bitterly disappointed by Barack Obama’s inaugural speech. In yet another partisan campaign speech, Mr. Obama suggested that he holds all those who disagree with his views to be malevolent saboteurs who must be run over. Did he characterize the profound differences of opinion on the role of government as inspired by love of country? No. He essentially told America that he holds nearly half of the nation’s citizens in utter contempt. Such arrogance is not leadership; it is so...

Somewhere in our president's short inaugural address last week (it only seemed long), our newly re-elected chief executive paused to deliver a pious little sermon on the evils of name-calling -- and for good measure, the evils of delay, spectacle and absolutism, too. The Rev. Obama crammed all those sins into a couple of sentences that might have passed for a mini-homily from some less-gifted televangelist: "For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate." Well said, at least for an...

For generations, presidents have used their inaugural address to unite the nation in aspiring to new heights of achievement. But earlier this week President Obama chose to deliver a harshly ideological, aggressively partisan speech more appropriate for the campaign trail than the solemn occasion of our nation's 57th inaugural address. Rather than bring all Americans together with a celebration of common ground, his address read like a liberal laundry list with global warming at the top. Although President Obama was sworn in with his hand on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible, he did not echo the tone of unity for which Lincoln...

To understand leftism, the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years, you have to understand how the left thinks. The 2013 inaugural address of President Barack Obama provides one such opportunity. --"What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'" What American does not resonate to a...

The diversity warriors, with no sense of humor and short on irony, keep looking for victims in all the old places. President Obama, advertising his inaugural address as a call to unity and a "coming together as one people," rounded up the usual suspects as if nothing in America had changed since Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall. The suffragettes at Seneca Falls in 1848, the marchers at Selma in 1965 and the resisters at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 all led the way toward tolerance, but the president spoke of their sacrifice as if frozen in a time warp of...

When he stood before the world to deliver his first inaugural address four years ago, President Barack Obama proudly declared, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers." Early in his presidency, he repeated various permutations of this phrase, always reserving the resonant final spot for the "non-believers." During his first term, Obama also occasionally edited the Creator from the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," he said, for example, in a Sept. 15, 2010, speech, "that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights: life and liberty and...

Bill Clinton isn't often wrong when it comes to politics, but his assertion in his 1996 State of the Union Address that "the era of big government is over" was a bit premature. In light of President Obama's Second Inaugural Address, the era of big government has just begun. The reliably liberal columnist Dana Milbank of The Washington Post exhibited refreshing honesty when he wrote of Obama's speech, "...it failed to rise to the moment." The president's address was more campaign rhetoric than visionary. He even lowered himself to reference Mitt Romney's inelegant remark about "takers" versus makers. Obama's comment...

Commentators both left and right agree that Barack Obama's second inaugural speech Monday was highly partisan, with shout outs to his constituencies on the left and defiance of his critics on the right. Obama quoted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and made brief reference to Abraham Lincoln's sublime Second Inaugural ("blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword"). But there was not much in the way of "with malice toward none, with charity for all." There were more references than in many inaugural speeches to specific programs and policies. One interesting question is what the practical effect...

Oh, how far-removed we are from what now seems like the "innocent" Bill Clinton days when all we had to worry about was the various definitions of the word "is". And now, after watching President Obama's second term inaugural address, it is clear we have a president who calls into question the meaning of the word "liberty." It is incomprehensible that this former constitutional lawyer would argue during his speech that America has evolved to the extent "our founding documents" no longer require us to "define liberty in exactly the same way." But then again, it's not so far-fetched considering...

On Monday, President Barack Obama delivered a monumental address to the nation. It wasn't monumental in terms of rhetoric -- in fact, it wasn't even memorable. It was monumental because it signaled for the first time just how grand Obama's ambitions for the left are. No longer is the left content to wage a war against Constitutional principles on behalf of a Marxist philosophical system. Now they will attempt to convince the American people that Constitutional principles dictate Marxism. Obama opened his address by quoting the Declaration of Independence: "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Declaration of Independence...

As Barack Obama thrilled his supporters on Monday with his clarion call to action for the poor and the oppressed, young people across the country -- though in numbers somewhat smaller than were enthralled by their leader's words four years ago -- nodded in agreement. For this was about them, and Obama’s speech told them once again how great they are. Obama spoke to the "N Generation," those millions who, because they are the beneficiaries of the miracles of internet technology and instant, worldwide communications, believe firmly they know all and are entitled to everything; as the old song by...

Abraham Lincoln, deeply troubled by four years of Civil War bloodletting, gave a great second inaugural address in 1865. By then Lincoln saw slavery as a terrible stench in God’s nostrils, so he mused about why God was taking so long to blow it away with His mighty breath. Lincoln’s words: “If God wills that [the war] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago,...

A few days before George W. Bush's second inaugural, I received an urgent call from a friend. Belinda Stronach wanted to come to Washington to see the event. Could I get her tickets to the swearing-in and the balls afterward? We did get the tickets — and Belinda did the rest. Her progress through Washington was glittering. She hosted a star-spangled dinner at Washington's Palm restaurant the night after the President took the oath. The Solicitor General of the United States was there, and so was Kelly from the Apprentice, Larry King and an editor from Vanity Fair, as well...

What Alvarez and scores of residents of her impoverished Havana neighborhood found at their doorstep was a pocket-size reprint of Bush's Jan. 20 inaugural address in which he vowed to free the world of tyranny. The speech and a second pamphlet containing the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights arrived anonymously in the dead of night and are part of an escalating U.S. government program to spur political change in this one-party state. For decades, the U.S. government's attempt to penetrate Cuba with information has had limited success. Cuban authorities routinely jam Radio and TV Marti, the anti-Castro broadcasts produced...

If the words and wisdom of Abraham Lincoln were emulated in Bush's Second Inaugural Address, it might be instructive to look at Lincoln's Second Inaugural, which some critics say surpasses the Gettysburg Address in sublimity, if not in its memorability in history. On March 4, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln delivered his address, the Civil War was nearing its end. After four years of being a war president, Lincoln was looking forward to being a "peace president." About 40,000 journeyed to the capital to hear his address. Many were soldiers, some missing an arm or a leg. That and the presence...