AUDACIOUS VISION OF REALITY IN AMERICA

Of the hundreds of promises Barack Obama has made for change, including his rousing inaugural pledge Tuesday to usher in a new era of responsibility, the most powerful is his promise to revive America's spirit and redirect its energy.

Obama sees the world from a vastly different perspective than his predecessor, George W. Bush. His is a world, not of us vs. them, but in which the United States looks to build bridges with willing partners ... and to punish sworn enemies. He sees a federal government that uses its might to help people in distress while keeping a watchful eye on the powerful. He would rather tap into America's collective strength as a diverse people to solve problems rather than divide them into warring camps with political spoils to the winner, as both Democrats and Republicans have done from the Oval Office.

This is the broad template from which Obama carved out a 21st century version of the American dream in a speech witnessed by millions of shivering, adoring people who came from near and far to be part of history. In his two-year campaign odyssey to get to the White House, Obama made 510 promises ... some big, some small. Every one of them, however, will be carefully monitored by interested constituents. Thus, Obama carries the burden of race, unreasonable expectations and unprecedented challenges.

He begins his four-year term burdened with two wars, a deep recession, record deficits, a Middle East crisis, eroded national confidence and diminished international esteem. His celebrity status and high poll ratings ... more than 70 percent of Americans view him favorably ... mean that more people have more exacting expectations of him than he can possibly deliver.

Obama carries the burden with a poise and confidence that belies his youthfulness ... he is 47 ... and his relative lack of experience. From his meticulously planned presidential campaign and impressive Cabinet choices, a view of Obama's governing style has begun to come into focus. The new president seems decisive, energetic, open to collaboration, comfortable with risk taking, willing to compromise and strongly focused on goals.

More than anything, Obama seems singularly determined to bring 300 million Americans together under the big tent of a diverse nation unified by common challenges and purpose. This approach has proved effective in the strict discipline of military campaigns and when the nation has been under direct physical attack. Today's challenges come from multiple fronts, not all of them tangible or visible. Obama rallies the nation with discipline and optimism ... and he is off to a good start.

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The following editorial appeared in the Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho) on Wednesday, Jan. 21:

STARTLING BLUNTNESS FROM THE PRESIDENT

In 19 minutes Tuesday, President Obama spoke candidly about our challenges, spoke forcefully to our foes, and spoke stirringly to our ideals.

America's new president demonstrated the focus demanded by the times. It was an auspicious beginning _ one designed to inspire supporters and to include skeptics in the hard work ahead.

Addressing America for the first time as president, Obama reached out to address all Americans.

He spoke with the moving oratory that marked his campaign, and also with startling bluntness.

America faces a crisis, said Obama, not once but twice. Our nation is at war. Our health care system is broken and our schools need repair. Our economy is "badly weakened," our national confidence flagging.

Yet Obama managed artfully to balance the harsh reality against the promise of a better future. "(Our challenges) will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America _ they will be met."

Obama's critics from an exhausting two-year campaign _ those who suggested the Illinois Democrat would be soft on defense or lavish with public spending _ can also find some common ground with the new president. He delivered a resolute warning to terrorists: "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." He also reframed the debate over the role of government, promising outcomes and accountability: "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works."

Obviously, Americans will disagree over the details of a government that works. Obama gently touched on the debates to come. He made a general case for a far-reaching _ and expensive _ public works and economic stimulus plan that has drawn early, bipartisan skepticism from the Idaho congressional delegation. He spoke of confronting "the specter of a warming planet," and advocated tighter market regulations. On these pressing matters of the moment, Obama will likely face some resistance. To his credit, Obama expressed no desire for ideological battles that consume valuable focus and precious political capital.

And Obama spoke eloquently about the need to work together. After a campaign predicated on change, Obama urged Americans to embrace time-honored values and a renewed sense of responsibility. "This is the price and the promise of citizenship."

Today, that promise seems brighter. Our pride, as Americans, feels more profound.

This of course reflects the nature of Obama's election as the nation's first black president. In a time when the description "historic" is tossed about like word candy, the term truly applies today.

Obama didn't skirt history, talking about a nation that has tasted "the bitter swill of civil war and discrimination," and emerged stronger. Obama also made us look unflinchingly at the challenges we now face together _ signaling leadership that is both disciplined and inspiring.

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The following editorial appeared in the Sacramento Bee on Wednesday, Jan. 21:

VIRTUE AND DUTY

Not since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaugural in the depths of the Great Depression have Americans heard such a ringing call for an activist government and an activist citizenry.

In his first speech as president, Barack Obama said the issue is not "whether our government is too big or too small," a stale debate, "but whether it works." And meeting the difficulties of our time, he said, is not just about the "skill or vision of those in high office" but about "we, the people" remaining "faithful to the ideals of our forebears and true to our founding documents."

Just as President Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural called upon the "better angels of our nature," Obama called upon Americans to "choose our better history."

His speech was more about character _ virtue and duty _ than about policies.

Obama described the economic crisis as a "consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some" but, more important, as "our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age."

In essence, he declared that the era of something for nothing is over. American greatness, he said, "must be earned" _ no "shortcuts or settling for less." He called for a return of old values _ "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism" _ to launch a "new era of responsibility."

He held up the spirit of service that leads men and women to join the military _ "a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves" _ as the spirit that "must inhabit us all" in this trying moment of our history.

And in a line that should apply here in California as lawmakers debate furloughs vs. layoffs, Obama noted the "selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job." It is this kind of sacrifice, he said, "which sees us through our darkest hours."

In speaking of war with a "far-reaching network of violence and hatred" _ as distinct from some omnipresent, all-powerful enemy _ Obama signaled a major change in U.S. rhetoric about the threats we face in the world. No longer will we react with fear or alarmism. Obama will neither exaggerate nor minimize threats: "(O)ur spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

He made it clear that in doing so, Americans will reject the false choice "between our safety and our ideals." Those ideals, Obama said, "still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake" _ a rebuke to those who jettisoned longstanding American values after the 9/11 attacks.

Obama ended his inaugural address by harking back to the Revolutionary era. He chose the famous essay by Thomas Paine that begins, "These are the times that try men's souls." As Obama recounted, Gen. George Washington ordered that the essay be read to the soldiers in the hard winter of 1777 at Valley Forge.

The whole essay remains worth reading, but Obama chose this line: "Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet ... it."

In Obama's view, what is at stake today in our time of war and economic crisis is, as it was in 1777, our character as a people. He believes we are up to the task of "remaking America" to meet the challenges of a changing world. Now the American people have to show through their actions that they believe it, too.

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The following editorial appeared in the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer on Wednesday, Jan. 21:

NOW COMES THE HARD PART

Freshly minted President Barack Obama addressed the nation he now leads as "my fellow citizens," about a million of whom had come to Washington to share this epochal event with him.

The theme running through his relatively brief (less than 20 minutes) inaugural address was clear: No president, no policy, no philosophy of governance can restore our economy, our strength or our spirits without the will and energy of the American people.

The speech sounded the expected notes of hope and change, the themes to which Americans responded at the polls. The United States, this new president told us, can endure and prevail in the face of the woes we now face. Anyone who doubts that we will do so, Obama said, has "forgotten what this country has already done."

But the president's address also sounded notes of realism and of warning: What he called "the work of remaking America" will be difficult, and not without deep and sustained sacrifice. He called on Americans to emulate the patriotic spirit of the men and women of the armed services in their "willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves." That spirit, he said, is both "the price and the promise of citizenship."

And, in what could be interpreted as an implicit appeal for us to move past some of the tired old debates that have polarized and paralyzed the civic process, he said the question is "not whether government is too big or too small, but whether it works."

He acknowledged our obvious and tangible problems _ a prolonged economic crisis whose end is not yet in sight; years-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the terror threat whose dark shadow still looms, more than seven years after 9/11, over American lives and livelihoods. "Less measurable but no less profound," he added, "is a sapping of confidence."

That confidence is easy to sustain in times of peace and prosperity; it is in times of crisis and adversity that Americans must draw on our deepest reserves of courage and common purpose. We must be, in Obama's words, "bigger than the sum of our ambitions."

And, in an appeal that could hardly have been lost on any listener, the new president called on us to reaffirm basic American principles at a time when it might be easy to rationalize abridging or abandoning them. When fear is easier to understand and embrace than hope, it is precisely in those moments that we must "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

Now comes the hard part.

"Greatness is never a given," the president said. "It must be earned."

It's time for the president of the United States to get on with the herculean task of earning his. And for the rest of us, as he reminded us, to get back to the task of earning ours.

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The following editorial appeared in The Olympian (Olympia, Wash.) on Wednesday, Jan. 21:

THE RIGHT MESSAGE

In his long-anticipated and heartfelt inaugural address Tuesday, President Barack Obama captured the hearts of millions of Americans.

Echoing a theme of hope and change, a theme he rode during the long presidential campaign, the nation's 44th president spelled out a vision for America that friend and foe can embrace.

The president did not shirk from the challenges ahead. He spelled out clearly the obstacles faced by the incoming administration _ the war in Iraq, an economy in the throes of a horrible recession, mistrust of government institutions, the need to defend the homeland from terrorist, affordable health care and mounting unemployment.

He drew a sharp line between himself from the failed policies of the previous administration, signaling a new era of cooperation.

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them _ that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply," Obama said. "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."

Charting a new course for the United States, Obama said, "Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions _ that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin the work of remaking America."

He clearly understands that Americans want leaders who focus on solutions and cooperation, not the politics of conflict and division that have plagued the nation's Capitol that served as the backdrop for Tuesday's historic inauguration.

"On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics," President Obama proclaimed.

Amen to that.

Sounding a bit like Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president said, "Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed. ... Our capacity remains undiminished."

What's needed, he said, is a new area of personal responsibility and accountability. "Our challenges may be new," Obama told the human sea that stood before him _ a crowd estimated at 2 million _ and millions of viewers around the world watching from their televisions. "But those values upon which our success depends _ hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism ...," must be embraced anew. The nation, Obama said, must choose "hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

Amen, again.

In a nod to his worldwide audience, Obama said, "To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West _ know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. ... To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

He ended on a positive note to rousing applause: "In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.