Time to act, Obama declares, taking oath 2nd time

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama waves as they walk down Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue near the White House dur­ing the 57th Pres­i­den­tial Inau­gu­ra­tion parade Mon­day in Wash­ing­ton. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Charles Dharapak)

DAVID ESPO

AP Spe­cial Correspondent

WASHINGTON — Turn­ing the page on years of war and reces­sion, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama sum­moned a divided nation Mon­day to act with “pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion” to broaden equal­ity and pros­per­ity at home, nur­ture democ­racy around the world and com­bat global warm­ing as he embarked on a sec­ond term before a vast and cheer­ing crowd that spilled down the his­toric National Mall.

“America’s pos­si­bil­i­ties are lim­it­less, for we pos­sess all the qual­i­ties that this world with­out bound­aries demands,” the 44th pres­i­dent declared in a sec­ond inau­gural address that broke new ground by assign­ing gay rights a promi­nent place in the wider strug­gle for equal­ity for all.

In a unity plea to politi­cians and the nation at large, he called for “col­lec­tive action” to con­front chal­lenges and said, “Progress does not com­pel us to set­tle centuries-long debates about the role of gov­ern­ment for all time — but it does require us to act in our time.”

Elected four years ago as America’s first black pres­i­dent, Obama spoke from spe­cially con­structed flag-bedecked stands out­side the Capi­tol after recit­ing oath of office that all pres­i­dents have uttered since the nation’s founding.

The events high­lighted a day replete with all the fan­fare that a security-minded cap­i­tal could muster — from white-gloved Marine trum­peters who her­alded the arrival of dig­ni­taries on the inau­gural stands to the mid-winter orange flow­ers that graced the tables at a tra­di­tional lunch with law­mak­ers inside the Capitol.

The weather was rel­a­tively warm, in the mid-40s, and while the crowd was not as large as on Inau­gu­ra­tion Day four years ago, it was esti­mated at up to 1 million.

Big enough that he turned around as he was leav­ing the inau­gural stands to savor the view one final time.

“I’m not going to see this again,” said the man whose polit­i­cal career has been mete­oric — from the Illi­nois Leg­is­la­ture to the U.S. Sen­ate and the White House before mark­ing his 48th birthday.

On a day of renewal for democ­racy, every­one seemed to have an opin­ion, and many seemed eager to share it.

“I’m just thank­ful that we’ve got another four years of democ­racy that every­one can grow in,” said Wilbur Cole, 52, a post­man from sub­ur­ban Mem­phis, Tenn., who spent part of the day vis­it­ing the civil rights museum there at the site where the Rev. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. was assas­si­nated in 1968.

The inau­gu­ra­tion this year shared the day with King’s birth­day hol­i­day, and the pres­i­dent used a Bible that had belonged to the civil rights leader for the swearing-in, along with a sec­ond one that been Abra­ham Lincoln’s. The pres­i­dent also paused inside the Capi­tol Rotunda to gaze at a dark bronze statue of King.

Oth­ers watch­ing at a dis­tance were less upbeat than Cole. Frank Pinto, 62, and an unem­ployed con­struc­tion con­trac­tor, took in the inau­gural events on tele­vi­sion at a bar in Hart­ford, Conn. He said because of the president’s poli­cies, “My grand­kids will be in debt and their kids will be in debt.”

The tone was less overtly polit­i­cal in the nation’s cap­i­tal, where bipar­ti­san­ship was on the menu in the speech­mak­ing and at the con­gres­sional lunch.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions and God­speed,” House Speaker John Boehner, a Repub­li­can, said to Obama and Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden as he pre­sented them with flags that had flown atop the Capitol.

Out­side, the Inau­gural Parade took shape, a reflec­tion of Amer­i­can musi­cal­ity and diver­sity that fea­tured mil­i­tary units, bands, floats, the Chi­nese Amer­i­can Com­mu­nity Cen­ter Folk Dance Troupe from Hockessin, Del., and the Isis­erettes Drill & Drum Corps from Des Moines, Iowa.

The crowds were sev­eral rows deep along parts of the route, and secu­rity was intense. More than a dozen vehi­cles flanked the president’s lim­ou­sine as it rolled down Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue, and sev­eral agents walked along­side on foot.

As recent pre­de­ces­sors have, the pres­i­dent emerged from his car and walked sev­eral blocks on foot. His wife, Michelle, was with him, and the two held hands while acknowl­edg­ing the cheers from well-wishers dur­ing two sep­a­rate strolls along the route.

A short time later, accom­pa­nied by their chil­dren and the vice pres­i­dent and his fam­ily, the first cou­ple set­tled in to view the parade from a review­ing stand built in front of the White House.

A pair of night­time inau­gural balls com­pleted the offi­cial pro­ceed­ings, with a guest line run­ning into the tens of thousands.

In his brief, 18-minute speech, Obama did not dwell on the most press­ing chal­lenges of the past four years. He barely men­tioned the strug­gle to reduce the fed­eral deficit, a fight that has occu­pied much of his and Con­gress’ time and promises the same in months to come.

He spoke up for the poor — “Our coun­try can­not suc­ceed when a shrink­ing few do very well and a grow­ing many barely make it” — and for those on the next-higher rung — “We believe that America’s pros­per­ity must rest upon the broad shoul­ders of a ris­ing mid­dle class.” The sec­ond ref­er­ence echoed his calls from the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign that cat­a­pulted him to re-election

“A decade of war is now end­ing. An eco­nomic recov­ery has begun,” said the pres­i­dent who presided over the end to the U.S. com­bat role in Iraq, set a timetable for doing the same in Afghanistan and took office when the worst reces­sion in decades was still deepening.

“We will sup­port democ­racy from Asia to Africa, from the Amer­i­cas to the Mid­dle East, because our inter­ests and our con­science com­pel us to act on behalf of those who long for free­dom,” he said in a rel­a­tively brief ref­er­ence to for­eign policy.

The for­mer com­mu­nity orga­nizer made it clear he views gov­ern­ment as an engine of progress. While that was far from sur­pris­ing for a Demo­c­rat, his empha­sis on the need to com­bat global cli­mate change was unex­pected, as was his firm new dec­la­ra­tion of sup­port for full gay rights.

In a jab at climate-change doubters, he said, “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.” He said Amer­ica must lead in the tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able energy resources.

He likened the strug­gle for gay rights to ear­lier cru­sades for women’s suf­frage and racial equality.

“Our jour­ney is not com­plete until our gay broth­ers and sis­ters are treated like any­one else under the law — for if we are truly cre­ated equal, then surely the love we com­mit to one another must be equal as well,” said the pres­i­dent, who waited until his cam­paign for re-election last year to announce his sup­port for gay marriage.

His speech hinted only barely at issues likely to spark oppo­si­tion from Repub­li­cans who hold power in the House.

He defended Medicare, Med­ic­aid and Social Secu­rity as pro­grams that “do not make us a nation of tak­ers; they free is to take the risks that made this coun­try great.”

He referred briefly to mak­ing “the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit,” a rhetor­i­cal bow to a loom­ing debate in which Repub­li­cans are seek­ing spend­ing cuts in health care pro­grams to slow the rise in a $16.4 tril­lion national debt.

He also cited a need for leg­is­la­tion to ease access to vot­ing, an issue of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to minor­ity groups, and to immi­gra­tion reform and gun-control leg­is­la­tion that he is expected to go into at length in his State of the Union speech on Feb. 12.

But his speech was less a list of leg­isla­tive pro­pos­als than a plea for tack­ling challenges.

“We must act, know­ing that our work will be imper­fect,” he said, and today’s “vic­to­ries will only be partial.”

There was some offi­cial busi­ness con­ducted dur­ing the day.

Moments after being sworn in, the pres­i­dent signed nom­i­na­tion papers for four new appointees to his Cab­i­net, Sen. John Kerry for sec­re­tary of state, White House chief of staff Jacob Lew to be trea­sury sec­re­tary, for­mer Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel for defense sec­re­tary and White House adviser John Bren­nan to head the CIA.

Posted by AP News on Jan 21 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.