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___ MANY PATHS TO HAPPINESS Sally Buzbee, AP's Washington bureau chief, unpacks one piece of President Barack Obama's inaugural address. ___ I'm not like you. You're not like her. She's not like him. Yeah, so what? We can
-- must -- still find common ground. That was the point of the somewhat subtle argument used today by President Barack Obama to make a basic point: Government officials shoulder a responsibility to take action and solve problems, even if they disagree on some basic beliefs. "Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life," the president asserted in his inaugural address. "It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness." But, he said, even if Americans can't settle "centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time," officials do have the responsibility to take action to try to make progress on the immediate problems the country faces. The idea that liberty can be defined in different ways and that there are different paths to happiness has particular resonance, of course, in a country that is becoming ever more diverse. Polls show that increasing diversity makes some Americans uncomfortable. But beyond that sweeping philosophical point, the president's argument also had a clear, pragmatic
-- and more immediate -- political purpose: to unite people who are deeply dug in on their beliefs and harness their energy to seek common ground and practical solutions. "For now, decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle," the president said. It's a highly relevant point for a president who must will spend the next several years trying to seek compromise with politicians who believe things quite different than he does. --By Sally Buzbee ___
HALF A LOAF President Barack Obama is fond of saying: "We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good." His point: sometimes we have to settle for half a loaf. Well, that's what he got in Washington today during his second inauguration
-- in attendance, that is. Turnout was "definitely above 800,000" and possibly up to 1 million people, according to Chris Geldart, who directs the District of Columbia's homeland security and emergency management agency. That estimate is based on aerial views of how the crowd filled sections of the mall. That's about half of the 1.8 million people who showed up for Obama's first inauguration in 2009. --Liz Sidoti ___ ON CLIMATE A look at the issues that those who govern the country will face during Barack Obama's second term. Up now: the climate. ___ President Barack Obama is picking a fresh fight on climate change, saying in his inaugural address that a failure to act to curb it would betray future generations. He's hoping to tackle the issue
-- and live up to his prediction during the 2008 campaign that he would. But addressing the matter will be difficult. The president has acknowledged that climate change was pushed to the back burner during his first term while he dealt with wrenching economic challenges and spent much of his political capital on reforming health care. But now he appears to be trying to make the case for action by pointing to the destruction of Hurricane Sandy, annual wildfires and droughts rivaling the Dust Bowl. Says Obama: "Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought and more powerful storms." Even amid the natural disasters, any attempt to respond to global warming faces a daunting prospect in Congress, where legislation narrowly cleared the House in 2009 but died in the Senate. Republicans control the House now and many Democrats in the Senate view the issue with suspicion
-- especially about a half-dozen Senate Democrats facing re-election next year who represent states carried by Republican Mitt Romney.
When Obama won enough support in the Democratic primaries to secure the 2008 Democratic nomination, he said future generations would look back at that night as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Heading into his second term, one of the main questions is whether he meets that test. --Ken Thomas ___ AMERICAN SONGBAG It was at 6:31 p.m. tonight, just before the inaugural parade ended, that the bagpipers passed the president's reviewing stand playing their oddly compelling medley of "America, the Beautiful" and "God Bless America." One wonders whether Irving Berlin ever considered what it would be like to hear his famous song in bagpipe. Barack Obama began the second term of his presidency today in many ways. You could say he began it leading a fractious nation (many did). You could say he began it with daunting tasks at hand (certainly true). Or you could say, quite accurately, that he began his second four years as leader of the free world by spending quite a bit of time listening to unusual and diverse versions of American musical standards. The works of John Philip Sousa, who was born on Capitol Hill in 1854, turned up more than once, and one wonders how many people these days can identify "Stars and Stripes Forever" (1896) anymore. "My Country
'Tis of Thee" (1831) made several appearances, too, with few people perhaps considering that it shares a melody with Britain's "God Save the Queen." This after some high-ticket performers tried their hands. James Taylor pulled off a very affecting "America the Beautiful" (first published in 1910). Kelly Clarkson chimed in with an offbeat "My Country
'Tis of Thee." And Beyonce belting out "The Star-Spangled Banner"? Electric. The inevitable "Hail to the Chief," of course, which was first used for the president in the early 1800s, popped up regularly through the day, and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (1861) echoed through the streets of Washington more than once as well. If you were watching and listening, you heard the best of the American songbag presented in ways as varied and diverse as America itself. Exciting stuff. Too bad the parade's over, though. A few more minutes and who knows? We might have been treated to Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land"
-- on the Australian didgeridoo. --Ted Anthony ___ DEFICITS AND DECISIONS A look at the issues that those who govern the country will face during Barack Obama's second term. Up now: the deficit.
___ President Barack Obama devotes one word -- "deficit" -- to the issue that brought Washington to the brink of fiscal crises time and again during his first term. But it's the paragraph that follows in his inaugural address that foreshadows what's to come: more hard bargaining and more last-minute deals driven by a conviction that he wields an upper hand. "We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future," he says. "The commitments we make to each other
-- through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security -- these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great." This was the language of his re-election campaign. And while his address contained no reference to either political party, his pointed rejection of "a nation of takers" was an implicit reminder of the ill-timed surfacing of Mitt Romney's declaration that Obama's support came from the 47 percent of American voters "who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it." --Jim Kuhnhenn ___ Follow AP reporters contributing to Inauguration Watch on their Twitter handles, listed throughout the text.
http://twitter.com/lsidoti
http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas
http://twitter.com/anthonyted
http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn
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