The Inaugural

My not-readers will not-care they must not-read my thoughts on President Obama's inaugural speech several days after the event.

It was an ungenerous speech. Obama has already won the election. Criticizing the false choices and bad science and indecision of the Bush Administration may please his base, but it irritates the still-large faction that supported and like President Bush, and does little to show the way forward.

It was an unthoughtful speech, full of small misstatements and half-truths, and without a clear vision how President Obama will govern.

I was glad to hear the defiance of terror and the promise of victory, and the touch of conservative tropes like virtue and responsibility.

I have worried that we don't know much about President Obama or how he will govern, and speculated that he would show his intentions upon taking office. But I doubt that even he knows what he intends to do. He is feeling his way without a clear set of principles, unconvinced that progressive conventions will serve but unsure of what ought to replace him. That gives hope that if he listens broadly and decides carefully, he may find his way to better approaches than expected of a Democrat. But it creates worry that if he simply tries to split the differences or log-roll majorities with a mish-mash of compromise elements will give us an indecisive policy of ill-thought and erratic measures.