Yesterday around 12:30 pm eastern I was jolted by the forgotten sensation of feeling like a proud American.
It was a good feeling, although nothing of the bumper-stickered, nationalistic "Proud to be an American" sort, since my identity was provided at birth and therefore I really had very little to do with it. Rather, it was a pride in what I sensed is my country's reemerging goodness, or at least what I desperately hope is a roughly approximated virtuous return.
And having contributed to that national potential through my vote, I also felt proud of having cast it, the millions of others who had joined me and, after President Obama spoke, the resulting product so far.
His inaugural address may not rank among the few greats, yet it did deliver, I thought, precisely what it needed to deliver: a signaling of national metamorphosis, principally through first acknowledging our common blunders, then accepting common challenges and pursuing common objectives.
That -- the proven perils of commonality lost, the hope of commonality found -- was the unmistakable theme which ran throughout.
"Our economy," for instance, "is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age."
Later, "we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."
And yet again: "There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage."
I was struck by the rewarding degree to which the president openly denounced our most recent past, especially since its perpetrator was sitting but a few feet away. But in doing so he again embraced and reinforced the theme of common purpose:
"The nation cannot prosper long" -- nor "long endure," I imagine he was tempted to write -- "when it favors only the prosperous." Remedially, only by "extend[ing] opportunity to every willing heart" can we find "the surest route to our common good."
In foreign policy, too, the theme of commonality persisted: "Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions."
But of course no Obamian statement of principles would be complete without a forceful reminder of the post-ideological world he envisions: that we must overcome the "worn-out dogmas" of the right and left, and, like a nation of 300 million industriously thoughtful William Jameses, ponder and pursue only what may work.
"The question we ask today," he affirmed in a characteristically sensible offering of pure pragmatism, "is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end."
Jamesian, Rooseveltian -- Obamian. It's about time.
Finally, the president reached into earlier eras in which an authentic understanding of American "values" prevailed -- not as a cheap political slogan, but as an achievable ideal of national character:
"Our challenges may be new ... but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true.... What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility.... This is the price ... of citizenship. This is the source of our confidence [which can] shape an uncertain destiny."
Destiny is an odd little concept as a subject for debate, since by definition it connotes an absolute and immutable -- hence uselessly ponderable -- certainty. But perhaps it can, after all, be tweaked. It certainly can for the poet, anyway, and grand poetic visions are what inaugural addresses should convey. And that, Barack Obama did admirably.
But from merely a narrow, personal point of view? He made me feel proud again.
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