By ,
Ricky Carioti/Washington Post
President Obama has never lacked for confidence, but rarely has that attribute been on display as clearly as on Monday in an inaugural address that underscored the distance he has traveled after four contentious years in office.
This was not the politician who campaigned in 2008 on themes of transcending the divisive politics of the past, though there were ritual calls for the country and its political leaders to seize this moment together. Instead, it was a president who has accepted the reality of those divisions and is determined to prevail on his terms.
Obama’s first campaign was aspirational, and he came to office believing, or at least hoping, that through force of personality he could gently guide the opposing sides to consensus on issues that had long resisted resolution. Monday’s speech conveyed the ambitions of a president looking at his next four years with a sense of frustration and impatience, and who now believes that a different style of leadership is required.
In his speech, Obama set out his priorities for a second term, goals that will cheer the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and probably alarm many on the right. He challenged Republicans to meet him partway, though not exactly in the middle. If there was an underlying message Monday, it was not “Come, let us reason together.” It was “Follow me.” The question is whether he will be any more successful in his second term than he was in his first.
Pressure on Republicans
There are reasons for the president setting a different tone in his second inaugural than in his first. Two years after he and his party took a beating in the midterm elections, he now holds the strongest hand in Washington. His approval ratings have climbed above 50 percent, while his Republican opponents in Congress remain mired in disapproval ratings almost three times as high as their approval ratings.
Obama once hoped that he could overcome the united opposition of congressional Republicans, whose militant House members set the party’s tone during the battles of the past two years, through negotiation with GOP leaders. Now he is looking to the country to pressure his opponents to compromise in ways that they would not during his first term.
Republicans have already tested the reelected president and discovered the limits of their power. Their decision not to pick a fight — for now — over the debt ceiling signaled their recognition of that reality. It was an acknowledgment that the tactic of opposing Obama at almost every turn may be self-defeating.
Obama appears ready to try to split the Republican coalition by setting pragmatists against ideologues. On Monday, he rebuked those who have been most aggressive in their opposition when he said, “We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”
Republicans will have to choose their battles more carefully, and they may prevail in some cases. Obama knows that he won’t get all he wants, but the balance of power at the start of his second term is far different from what it was 24 months ago.
The year ahead promises more debates over the size and scope of government, issues that dominated the past two years in Washington. Obama acknowledged the need to deal with spending and the deficit, but he also set out terms for the coming fight over federal entitlements.
During the campaign, Obama talked about the philosophical divide between Republicans and Democrats on these issues, as he condemned the broken politics of Washington. He said the American people could break the tie with the election.
But the election returned a majority of Republicans to the House, and on Monday the president seemed to suggest that there were grounds for compromise. “Progress,” he said, “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.”
Addressing his coalition
Obama’s second inaugural address also reflected a changing America and the coalition that reelected him to office. The nation’s first African American president leads an ever-more diverse population and a country in which attitudes and mores continue to change, particularly among the youngest segment of society.
The policy agenda he put forth, and the values he enunciated, spoke directly to that coalition. Never before has a president used an inaugural address to speak so openly about the cause of gay rights, linking the 1969 Stonewall uprising that led to the gay rights movement with Selma and civil rights and the 1839 Seneca Falls Convention and women’s rights.
Not all Americans agree with these changes, and as president, Obama must attempt to speak for them and to them. But his remarks Monday suggest that he believes history is on his side on these issues.
The president’s second inaugural address was notable also for what he talked about only in brief. Four years ago, he stood on the Capitol’s West Front with the country facing an economic crisis. Output was falling, the stock market had plunged, many Americans were threatened with housing foreclosures, and unemployment was rising rapidly. He talked about “a sapping of confidence across our land.”
On Monday, he touched only lightly on that crisis and spoke of the economy in positive terms. “An economic recovery has begun,” he said. At a time when jobs remain a top priority for most Americans, he chose neither to highlight that problem nor to offer any new solutions — though, ultimately, he will be judged on his effectiveness in restoring the economy to its full strength.
Opponents will find much to dislike about what Obama said Monday, for this was not a speech aimed at mollifying those who lost the election. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who lost the presidential race four years ago, expressed disappointment that Obama was not more explicit about bringing the two sides together. “I would have liked to have seen more on outreach and working together,” McCain said. But the senator added, “It’s his privilege to say what he wants.”
Obama risks overreaching or over-interpreting his mandate, which can be an affliction of newly reelected presidents. His victory in November was decisive but not overwhelming. Self-confidence can slip over the line to arrogance or hubris. Second terms often disappoint. So there are dangers ahead for the president.
On Monday, he set out his ambitions for a second term in clear language. What follows will define how history judges both those priorities and his ability to turn them into action.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/first-lady-michelle-obama-serves-as-fashion-icon/2013/01/21/655215dc-6413-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.htmlBy ,
First lady Michelle Obama stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol during President Obama’s second-term swearing-in, holding the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s black leather Bible in her magenta-gloved hands. The smaller Lincoln Bible rested atop it. Michelle Obama said nothing during the hour-long inaugural ceremony. But in the sea of black topcoats and C-SPAN stodginess, she stood out — statuesque bearing, new bangs accentuating her cheekbones, and grooming attuned to both the history books and high-definition TV.
After rallying the country to fight childhood obesity, speaking about the value of mentoring and championing the contributions of military families, she was once again in the spot where she had stood four years ago: A silent symbol of an administration’s mood and manner, a template of patriotism, a standard-bearer for femininity.
Wearing a navy Thom Browne coat cut from custom-made jacquard and a coordinating dress, she was a more subdued, more reserved presence than in 2009. She had traded in the bright, idealistic sheen of the lemongrass Isabel Toledo ensemble for one that was structured, relatively spare and unadorned except for the black, bejeweled J. Crew belt she added after the morning’s prayer service.
And for the evening’s two inaugural balls, she chose a patriotic red chiffon and velvet gown that highlighted her shoulders with its spare neckline. It was created by Jason Wu, the same young New York-based designer she catapulted from near anonymity into a household name when he crafted her first inaugural gown.
It was a stately choice, thanks to its classic first lady hue. But it had sophisticated sex appeal and was a far cry from the idealistic sweetness exuded by Wu’s first gown, the ivory, embroidered dress now in the National Museum of American History.
In four years, her style had shifted from fizzy hope to glimmering grown-up pragmatism.
During the day, her clothes echoed her husband’s. The Thom Browne coat was created from tie silk and echoed his discreet blue neckwear. As expected, the president wore a sober black overcoat, dark suit and black gloves, with a tiny American flag pin dotting his lapel. Their daughters, Sasha and Malia, finished the family portrait wearing coats in shades of lilac and violet. The elegant silhouettes underscored their new maturity.
Still, the first lady’s clothes stand apart. Observers obsess about Michelle Obama’s wardrobe because it offers clues to the personality of a public woman — a historic woman — who remains a resolutely private person. In an era of televised confessionals, she has never laid herself bare. But thankfully, her clothes, with their quirks and eccentric embellishments, do not adhere to unwritten protocol or dowdy traditions that have so often left first ladies little more than beige cyphers.
For four years, Obama’s clothes have connected with the public in contemporary terms, in the language of Hollywood’s progressive glamour, Seventh Avenue’s bold entrepreneurship and the democracy of the mass market.
In the constant tug of war between style and substance, Obama has proved they can be one and the same.
More than any other first lady in history, Obama has pushed the American fashion industry into the international spotlight. With a global reach unlike any actor or musician — and an authenticity untouched by endorsement deals or fealty to a single brand — she carried the creative skills, the technical wizardry and the earnest ambitions of Seventh Avenue stalwarts and upstarts into Buckingham Palace, the center of the Holy See, the neighborhoods of Ghana and into fashion’s very heart of darkness . . . Paris.
Obama has celebrated a distinctly contemporary version of American style — a sensibility rooted in comfort and practicality, wholly removed from the Old World formality that still percolates within French fashion and apart from the flashy sex appeal and bella figura tailoring that are the twin pillars of Italian aesthetics.
In her embrace of fashion, Obama does not ask designers to adapt their sensibilities to her own desires. Instead, she — or her emissary — encourages their best efforts and, most often, they rise to the occasion. Reed Krakoff created the custom-made, ultramarine silk day dress and cashmere cardigan she wore to the private swearing-in Sunday. Crafted in Krakoff’s New York atelier, the ensemble acknowledged the first lady’s affection for a cardigan and an easy dress, but it was also an accurate reflection of the American designer’s sportswear roots.
Browne’s aesthetic is also born of American tradition, inspired by Ivy League tailoring, button-down shirts and varsity-letter cardigans. Browne made his reputation in menswear, launching his brand in 2001 with his shrunken, schoolboy suits. He’s a designer whose small business — and multiple side projects — speaks to the struggle and tenacity required to succeed in the fashion industry. Last year, Browne received a Cooper-Hewitt Design Award for his fashion and was feted at the White House, along with other winners, by the first lady.
Obama’s ability to bring a significant financial windfall to the many mass-market labels she wears has been documented by a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. She is the first East Wing occupant to wield such economic clout in part because she lives in an age when a single image can be tweeted around the world.
Obama is a fashion icon — for all of the attention, discomfort and power that phrase might suggest. But she has been dogged by skepticism and disappointment that her work has not been substantive, that it has not been worthy of her educational pedigree. The fascination with her clothes has only fueled that debate.
But is substance being confused with controversy? Obama did not dive into the roiling seas of health-care reform as former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton did. But is tackling a pathology that threatens the life expectancy of generations of children any less significant?
Whether Obama will add a fourth or fifth item to her list of priorities is under discussion among her staff. “The first lady is exploring ways that she can make a real difference for Americans,” said Kristina Schake, Obama’s communications director, “not just for these next four years, but for years to come.”
Make no mistake; Obama would be loath to declare her interest in fashion a “priority.” And it is hard to imagine that she would willingly become the face of a campaign promoting this country’s $350 billion fashion industry. But style is a tool African American media use for pushing back against generations of stereotypes about black women.
As Michelle Ebanks, president of Essence Communications, noted, admiring words about the glossy images of a first-lady-lawyer-mother have become a near mantra in her home — repeated not to daughters, but to sons. Style is dignity, self-respect and confidence.
While Obama did not invent the sleeveless sheath, she gave it distinctive verve by pairing it with lean, sculpted arms. Those arms, which powered her through celebrity push-up competitions and surely must have hugged a million White House visitors, set her apart from the generation of women who preceded her into the White House. Obama revels in her athleticism, her physical fitness. Style is a synonym for health and vigor.
Indeed, Obama has done more than any other contemporary figure to normalize fashion — to move it from an outlier industry of flamboyant personalities and indecipherable verbiage to one that is discussed in the public domain with the same respectful tone applied to technology, architecture or even sports.
There is still a long way to go, of course. Cheating sports stars conjure up congressional hearings and require an interrogation by Oprah, while the fashion industry struggles to get limited trademark protections for its most unique designs. Professional women still feign fashion ineptitude as a sign of their workday gravitas.
But by giving style a prominent place in her public life, even when standing silently on a cold January day, Obama remains both eloquent and significant.
Givhan is a freelance writer.
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