Between the pomp and circumstance, Obama outlines a more liberal second term

WASHINGTON — John Bessler and Franni Franken sat huddling with other senators’ spouses on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Monday morning. To the right, their House counterparts stood snapping photos of John Mayer and Katy Perry. Some 600,000 people gathered behind, and on the inaugural stage in front of them, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken took their places with their Senate colleagues. 

With the Marine Corps Band playing behind them, Bessler talked about the work he hoped to see President Obama and Bessler’s wife, Amy Klobuchar, accomplish over the next four years. Franni Franken said she felt “a lot of joy. I think it’s such a validation of America that Barack Obama was elected to a second term. I’m very excited, and I’m very hopeful, like John, that we’re able to get things done.”

After taking the oath of office for the second time in as many days, Obama used his inaugural address to lay out what that second-term agenda might look like. He hinted at a more liberal set of policies than the one he’s pursued over the past two years, when he’s had both congressional Republicans blocking his way forward and a re-election campaign to occupy his time.

The latter is gone, and though the former remains, Obama promised to, among other things:

• Address global warming, “knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. 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.”
• End “perpetual war,” by showing “the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully — not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.”
• Expand gay rights, “for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

Obama didn’t try to fill in all the details — inaugural addresses aren’t for the heavy policy proposals you’d see in a State of the Union address, for example (that comes in February).

This speech was about setting the stage for Obama’s second term in office, one in which he sees Washington working to extend the rights and liberties granted in America’s founding documents to everyone in the county today and for years to come. Whether that can get done or not, for today at least, he didn’t much care.

To be sure, there were some not-so-subtle partisan jabs in the speech. He called for quicker, hassle-free voting after an election cycle in which many liberals complained state-level Republicans were looking to curtail that right.

Of entitlement spending, something Republicans have long looked to put on the table during budget negotiations, Obama said, “These things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.”

And he took congressional intransigence head-on, warning, “The oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction.  And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service.”

The mood on Capitol Hill Monday suggested that was actually possible. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, put out a statement congratulating Obama and promising, “Republicans are eager to work with the President.” At an afternoon luncheon, House Speaker John Boehner gave Obama and Vice President Joe Biden each a small but significant souvenir — the flags that flew over the red, white and blue-trimmed Capitol on Monday morning.

The crowd, more than a half-million strong, by local estimates, greeted the Clintons, the Bidens and especially Malia, Sasha and Michelle Obama with rich applause. The U.S. Marine Band played patriotic marches between performances from Kelly Clarkson, James Taylor and Beyoncé, whose national anthem got a cheer louder than anyone except Obama himself.

At the end of the program, Obama was spotted pausing and surveying the crowd for a long moment before heading indoors for a reception with lawmakers. “I want to take a look one more time,” he said. “I’m not going to see this again.”

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry