Wake Us When It's Over
THE SCRAPBOOK finds itself in a minority of one here, but we'll say it anyway: We thought Barack Obama's inaugural address was surprisingly mediocre. Not as painful to listen to as Elizabeth Alexander's banal inaugural poem, or Joseph Lowery's embarrassing benediction ("when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man"?). But we're willing to wager that, a generation from now, schoolchildren won't be memorizing its memorable passages.
That's because there weren't any. It sounded like an address by the class valedictorian, the work of an inspired 27-year-old, augmented with suggestions from perennial hacks like Theodore Sorenson and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Which is exactly what it was. There were the usual soaring banalities ("Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real"), meaningless pronouncements ("We will restore science to its rightful place"), excruciating images ("We have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation"), obvious clichés ("For the world has changed, and we must change with it"), Hallmark moments ("America is a friend of each nation, and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity") and the wisdom of motivational speakers ("We understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned"). But there was very little ice cream beneath the topping.
It was also singularly ungracious in tone, intent on establishing Barack Obama's moral superiority over George W. Bush, and consciously misrepresenting the last eight years of history. It was sonorous, of course, and delivered with the new president's earnest pomposity; but as an oration, or rhetoric that will echo down the ages, it had all the staying power of a nominating speech at the Democratic National Convention.
And yet, to be fair, THE SCRAPBOOK acknowledges that it wasn't Obama's fault. Blame it on John F. Kennedy. His 1961 inaugural address, much admired in many quarters, broke ranks with its predecessors in important ways. It was short, which was virtuous; but it was also largely devoid of content, self-consciously theatrical, and pontificating to the core. And it established the pattern of the last half-century.
Kennedy began by noting the historic significance of his own election and swearing-in ("a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change") and slighting his elderly predecessor ("the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century"), and proceeded to a list of reckless promises ("we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe"), irritating parallelisms ("Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate"), divine sanction ("on earth God's work must truly be our own"), and biblical platitudes ("now the trumpet summons us again").
And Kennedy's successors have each tried, in turn, to reproduce the same Historic Themes, Silver-Tongued Tone, Grandiloquent Language, and Moving Imagery that will encompass not just All of American History, and Accumulated Global Wisdom, but the Long March of Humanity Through the Ages to--well, single-payer health care, or more aircraft carriers, or higher wages for teachers, take your pick.
Inaugural addresses before JFK were closer in form and tone to State of the Union speeches than the giant helium balloons sent aloft today. So here's THE SCRAPBOOK's modest wish: May our next president, whoever he/she may be, seek out Thomas Jefferson, or James Knox Polk, or Ike's Second Inaugural, for inspiration.
Big Breitbart
If history is any indication, Big Holly-wood will soon be a must-click for political junkies of every persuasion. The new website (bighollywood.breit-bart.com) was launched earlier this month by SCRAPBOOK friend Andrew Breitbart, who played major roles in launching the Drudge Report and the left-leaning Huffington Post--two of the world's most-trafficked websites covering politics and pop-culture.
With Big Hollywood, Breitbart hopes to advance a discussion on those issues from a right-of-center perspective. The site will bring together politicians, pundits, and interns with actors, directors, and key grips to talk about Hollywood and America--and those rare places these days where the two overlap. In kicking off the site, Breitbart wrote:
Big Hollywood is not a "celebrity" gabfest or a gossip outpost--it is a continuous politics and culture posting board for those who think something has gone drastically wrong and that Hollywood should return to its patriotic roots. Big Hollywood's modest objective: to change the entertainment industry. To make Hollywood something we can believe in--again. In order to give millions of Americans hope.
Among the site's contributors: author and screenwriter Andrew Klavan; National Review's Jonah Goldberg; the Wall Street Journal's John Fund; MSNBC analyst Tucker Carlson; Fred Thompson; director David Zucker ( Airplane, The Naked Gun); Reason editor in chief Nick Gillespie; screenwriter John Ridley ( Three Kings); Hollywood box office analyst and ESPN radio host Steve Mason; former congressman John Kasich; and author/director Frank Miller ( 300 and Sin City).
Happy Ending
Two weeks ago in these pages, Jonathan V. Last reported on a conflict between the National Park Service, which is trying to build the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and Mike Svonavec, who owned the last important parcel of land needed for the project--including the six acres where the plane crashed ("The Fight Over Flight 93"). The Park Service claimed Svonavec was holding out; Svonavec claimed the Park Service was appraisal shopping to get his land on the cheap; and the Families of Flight 93 had asked the White House to get involved.
Just before midnight on January 16, Svonavec and the Park Service reached a binding agreement in which Svonavec signed his land over, and the NPS relinquished the appraisal of its value to a federal court.
It's unclear how much influence President Bush exerted. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the negotiations were a priority for Bush. The Families of Flight 93 thanked him for his personal involvement. Whatever the administration did, it seems to have worked out well for all concerned. After the deal was struck, Svonavec made sure to point out that he had not been strong-armed: "We were not forced into this," he said. "This is the methodology I think is the best for all concerned."