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Wait! We're Not Done with Bush Yet...

3:18 PM, January 19, 2009 | Comments (25)
Celebratory is a safe way to describe the mood in Washington. And not just for Barack Obama's big day on Tuesday. When Obama raises his right hand, it will mark for millions of his supporters the end of something else. At Dupont Circle in Northwest Washington,...

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Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2009 8:10 PM

Obama to World: 'We're Ready to Lead Again'

Michael Hirsh
It was all a bad dream. Or at least you can pretend it was. That was pretty much Barack Obama's message to the rest of the world in his inaugural address on Tuesday. Obama couldn't have been more clear if he had declared that he was filing for divorce from everything George W. Bush represented for the last eight years.

Jammed in among the throng on the national mall, which included many visiting foreigners, I was one of those who waited for that signature line we were sure would become our generation's "Ask not..." moment. It never really came. Instead the new president delivered a devastating repudiation of his predecessor's policies and this workmanlike message: "We are ready to lead once again."

Rather than evoke America's new rendezvous with destiny in lyrical but vague tones, Obama described the nation's challenge of "remaking" itself in clear but mostly negative terms: This, world, is what we will NOT do any longer. "We regard as false the choice between our safety and our ideals," Obama said. In other words, no more waterboarding. "Our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause." In other words, we'll no longer go tearing off into new wars no one else supports and we can't afford.

And in perhaps his most complete annulment of Bush's legacy--and what may have been his best line--Obama told the haters of America, the evil-doers Bush refused to speak to, that "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." The German woman standing next to me cheered wildly when she heard Obama conclude, "...nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect."

It wasn't poetry. But to foreign ears, it was all music. Just as important, it is a clean slate. And maybe that's enough for now.

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Member Comments

Posted By: Mark Thieme (January 22, 2009 at 2:57 PM)

Kenya is the among most Christian countries in Africa.

He wasn't born there.  He was born in America where one can choose one's own religious path.  

Obama is clearly more affected by Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, and the tenets of Christianity than he is by any other world religious tradition.

Frankly, I have little concern about his personal faith as a matter of competency.  I am an American.

Our most recent past President befouled whatever "religion" he represented.

This criminal was President for eight long years.  I put up with him and his incompetent thugs because I am an American.

The President is not freeing any killers.  He is closing the torture chambers.  He does this because he is affected by the tenets of his faith (Christianity) and because... he is an American.

MY Kool-Aid is red, white, and blue.  I bled for this country.  I am an American.

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Posted By: Concerned Canadian (January 22, 2009 at 9:46 AM)

Want to hear something sweet ?  Just a few days ago Bill Ayers , longtime old buddy of Barack Hussein Obama and radical terrorist, tried to enter Canada but Canada turned him away !!

That speaks volumes what the world really thinks of the weird radical and racist friends the President of the the USA has. The friends of the new President are not even allowed to enter

other countries. Man....are Americans that duped by this Obamamania kool-aid and Oprah Winfrey bs.

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Posted By: Getitout (January 21, 2009 at 4:37 PM)

@ Concerned Canadian;  Something about his religion is also troublesome. He was in a muslim school in Indonesia, but he said " I didn't practice it". His birth place is also questionable, I say he was born in Hawaii, lots of people say it's Kenya. Something is wrong about him. I leave it to media to take care of him. He makes one mistake, they going to be all over him, like a hyena on a wilderbeast.

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