I will say this: Inaugural speeches are often legacy speeches and based on this speech I’m going to guess that whatever his policies actually were and are, he told us today that he would like to be remembered by most people as a progressive president, not a centrist technocrat. Certainly, it won’t be centrists or the conservatives who bestow it on him — positive legacies are sustained by the members of your own party and ideology. If he wants to be in the liberal pantheon beyond the obvious (and very real) accomplishment of becoming the first African American president and some movement on gay rights, the second term will have to be different from the first. From the sound of today’s address, it would seem that he wants it to be. And if that’s true, progressives have some leverage.
Clues
Digby can keep smoking whatever she has been – the Hope and Change crack pipe.
g3 – gotta agree. After all this time has she ever been right about him? Digby will be trying so hard to believe even to the day he makes sure her SSI benefits are slashed for the benefit of his Wall Street friends.