President Bush chose an unusual tone for his inaugural address: understatement.
In a speech laced with buttery homilies that evoked the spiritual as much as the political, Bush tried to project a humility that befits the beclouded presidential election.
He didn’t sound a clarion trumpeting a clear national goal or a warning to an obvious enemy. He didn’t target a specific campaign promise or make any pretense of a mandate. He didn’t offer a worldview so much as a love-thy-neighbor view of the world.
No man on the moon. No eradication of poverty. If there was something for us to fear, he kept it to himself.
Instead, Bush’s address was almost subdued, a studied and perhaps intentional contrast to the style of the man he replaces, Bill Clinton. Clinton’s long goodbye–he didn’t leave town until he had given another valedictory and lingered nearly 2 1/2 hours after Bush’s swearing-in–was the antithesis of Bush’s CEO brand of punctuality.
Implicitly, the signal was that this era would be less chaotic and exciting, more controlled and focused. “There were not a lot of bells and whistles, much like the president himself,” said Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.).
If Clinton offered energy and optimism when he took the oath in 1992, Bush countered with his own brand of lower-key competence. The contrast might well reflect the political climate he inherits: an equally divided Senate, a threadbare 10-seat majority in the House and a skeptical nation.
Bush’s posture fit with his pose as a Washington outsider, not a creature of the capital culture of self-aggrandizement. And he paid homage to the highlights of his early agenda, promising programs on education, tax cuts and the building of a new-generation missile defense system.
The overarching thrust of the speech, however, was more about platitudes than policy. He used the words “justice,” “civility” and “compassion” a dozen times.
He rang some nice phrases:
“America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be a citizen.”
“Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is a determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.”
“Where there is suffering, there is duty.”
Those themes echoed the “thousands points of light” and “kinder, gentler nation” phrases uttered by his father, former President George Bush, and there were many who see in the son’s election a kind of political restoration. More than many, however, Bush seemed to recognize the temporary nature of the job contrasted with the permanence of the office of the presidency.
The decorous father was not a man of broad strokes and neither is the son. The president didn’t paint a vivid portrait of the challenge of a new millennium or America’s place in it. He didn’t talk about the promise and peril presented by the technology revolution.
He spoke instead of more vague but moving concerns of the heart. In his now familiar “not-this-but-rather-that” cadence, Bush asked the nation to reach out to the poor left out of America’s promise.
For the theater of the moment, the gloom of the dark skies, cold rain and raw wind didn’t help. Even the traditional inaugural parade had a faint sense of the funereal until Bush and his wife, Laura, got out of the presidential limousine to walk the final portion of the route.
The scene on the inaugural platform was unlike any other in history. Vice President Al Gore, who won about 540,000 more votes than Bush but lost in the decisive Electoral College, sat on the platform with his wife as Bush was sworn in by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whose Supreme Court opinion effectively decided the presidency.
Official Washington might remain fixated temporarily on the blood feud that was, but the change of administration–however controversial–will mean a turn of the page for the rest of the country.
“Americans are disposed to give the new guy a shot,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. “They want the president to be successful.”
The narrowness of his victory almost automatically ensures a lowered expectation.
“I think he’s inheriting a political climate that is more casually indifferent than most feel,” Democratic strategist Eric Hauser said. “In other words, the country is not waiting for anything grand, either rhetorically or in terms of policy. They knew the election was a mess, the country was divided and Bill Clinton is finally leaving them alone.
“I think they want a period of quietude. George Bush understands that, and that serves him well.”
While the nation was not so polarized over policy differences between Bush and Gore during the campaign, the post-election period vividly highlighted the cultural split in the country, one that has been brought to light again during the confirmation hearings of several Cabinet nominees.
“He has a decidedly polarized political climate combined with real unease and wariness about the economy,” Kohut said.
“A lot of Democrats and independents want to think the worst of him,” Kohut said. “The polling would suggest that he needs to define himself better as a good communicator and as a strong leader. …He also needs to assure people that he’s serious about being a uniter and not a divider.”
The more difficult path for Bush will be in the next few months of his nascent administration. Though some of his Cabinet nominees have been subjected to a flogging, most have breezed through the process.
“Now he’s got to start to govern,” Hauser said.
It is time for President Bush, the sequel.
