From poetry to prose

24 January 2009

The Spectator on Barack Obama's inauguration

This was the inaugural address of a President who, at the very least, grasps the limits of the rhetoric that, as much as any single factor, propelled him to the White House. The suspension of all military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay was an essential first step to recovering the moral authority lost there and in Abu Ghraib. But it will be in the mountains of Afghanistan and in the manner and pace of America’s withdrawal from Iraq that Obama’s success or failure as a war leader will be discovered; in his handling of Iran and North Korea that he reveals whether he is a global strategist of ability or a credulous liberal intellectual.

Above all, he will be judged not by his championship of ‘big plans’ before the Capitol on Tuesday, but by the practical impact of his fiscal stimulus package — $550 billion in new federal spending and $275 billion in tax cuts over two years, with the likelihood of more to come. The new President has a touching faith in grandiose government-funded infrastructure projects; in Democrat-controlled Congress, that faith approaches evangelical fervour. But the adoration of the American people for their new President will not last long if all that they have to show for the grand plan after a few years are tax rises, home repossessions and rising unemployment.

Now we shall see what this most enigmatic of politicians is truly made of. What is certain from his inaugural address, and to his credit, is that, having campaigned in poetry, he knows that the verdict of history will depend upon the prose in which he now governs.