Inauguration 2009

Tomorrow the US inaugurates a new president. Much is hoped from him because so much is needed, but whether he can deliver us from ourselves remains to be seen. We got ourselves into the mess by voting in the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It will take someone wielding a very sharp knife to cut away the excess, the unwise, the arrogant, and the corrupt. It will need to be someone who owes nothing to anyone. I think Barack Obama is such a man, and I think that at least four groups may be disappointed by the calm rationality with which he will conduct his presidency.

Among those groups disappointed may well be Hawaii, which has been claiming Obama as one of its own. Yes and no. The Hawaiian Islands were taken illegally from the Hawaiian monarchy by a group of businessmen who overthrew the monarchy. The US government was appealed to but chose not to return the Islands because of their strategic position. This created a permanent underclass of Hawaiians in their own lands. Today, the Hawaiians—those that remain—are at the bottom of every list that is good and at the top of every list that is bad. The intermarried population of the modern islands is called “local” rather than Hawaiian. Local culture is a mixed bag of values and attitudes derived from the Asian and Pacific peoples who met and blended there. As an outpost of the US, a far flung state five hours flying at least from the mainland, Hawaii is not and never has been a cultural outpost of the US. In fact, local people tend to disapprove of brash Caucasian mainlanders whom they call “haoles.” Obama probably escaped much of the opprobrium of being half-haole since he had an admixture of race, much as the local population does, but he was set apart in another way. He earned a scholarship to the premier, expensive, exclusive Punahou School, for which parents plot ways to get infants in line for attendance and plan to mortgage their houses if their child is offered a place. Graduates of Punahou and the other highly respected private schools in the Islands are an elite.

Then there is the group who might want him to rattle the American sabre and throw American weight around. In fact, he spent some of his childhood in Indonesia and his father’s family is African. This sets him apart because it indicates that he understands that not everyone speaks English and that people exist in other countries who do not necessarily subscribe to the American corporate way. How unique to have a president aware of a foreign language. I don’t expect him to have the xenophobic my country right or wrong, because he has some sense that people exist outside the US.

Another group who may wish to claim him and may be disappointed are the Civil Rights leaders from the Old School. These are the Southern leadership, many ministers, who held rallies and led marches, and called for justice and equality. He is the new generation and not from the South. He represents the successful entrepreneurial spirit of success that was predicated by the emotional appeals of his predecessors but is not dependent on them. He speaks in his own rational voice and will be a consummate pragmatist rather than an advocate for any particular group or religion.

The final group will be, I believe, the Democratic Party. I don't anticipate Obama allowing his policies to be dictated by the traditions of the party, He has been completely candid about the fact that partisan politics is a danger when the country faces economic ruin. Obama has to play the hand he’s been dealt and he doesn’t know yet exactly what he will be faced with. This is not the time to apply predetermined solutions. He will have to be flexible and see what will work.

I, for one, find refreshing what I believe will be his cool objectivity and eye to what’s needed rather than to group self-interest and to maintaining a guilty status quo. It’s cheering that he managed his way through the corruption of Chicago politics and managed not only to make a difference but emerge unscathed. As he takes on the monumental failures he must now address, I hope that he maintains his perspective, sets aside the unworkable ideologies and self-delusion that have marked the past administration, and gets us all back on track. He’s about the only one tough and detached enough who can do it.