This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 17, 2009 - The inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th president will provide a welcome reaffirmation of basic American ideals. A recommitment to those principles, some of which are implicit in any presidential inauguration and some of which are unique to this one, is sorely needed. America faces its current crises in part because those values have too often been subordinated, or ignored, in recent years.
Consider the symbolism of the usual ceremony. Before the president delivers the inaugural address, the chief justice of the United States administers the oath of office to the president at the west front of the Capitol Building at a public gathering.
The ceremony, so structured, reflects three basic principles.
First, it reminds us that the Constitution creates a three-part national government, not an arrangement in which authority is centralized at the White House. To be sure, the presidency has particular virtues and strong executive leadership will be needed for America to overcome the current crisis. Yet it is no coincidence that the president must travel to the site of Congress to take the oath from the highest judicial officer of the land. That arrangement represents the necessary interdependence and interaction among the three branches, which is the predicate of wise and sustainable policy. The inauguration signifies presidential humility, as well as energy, and success requires both qualities.
Moreover, the ceremony underscores two basic forms of accountability to which our constitutional system subjects our leaders. The oath the chief justice administers represents the principle that the president, like the rest of us, is subject to the rule of law. The setting represents the president’s political accountability. He is responsible directly to the people and to their representatives in Congress.
Finally, the ceremony symbolizes our national unity. A talented chief justice whose confirmation then-Sen. Obama opposed will administer the oath to a talented new president whose election Chief Justice John Roberts presumably did not support, in the presence of Republican leaders including President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney and Sen. John McCain. The bipartisan theme is an old and recurring one.
“We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists,” proclaimed Thomas Jefferson at his First Inaugural (before retreating to partisanship).
“We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom,” began John F. Kennedy.
Jimmy Carter thanked his predecessor, Gerald R. Ford, “for all he has done to heal our land.”
Our current national predicaments trace in some part to the extent to which these ideals of three-part government, accountability and bipartisanship have recently been ignored. During the past eight years, the Bush administration has systematically sought to centralize power in the executive branch, often usurping the proper roles of the other two branches of the national government. Some high officials in the executive branch have denied their political and legal accountability, conducting themselves in an autocratic manner with few, if any, American precedents. At times, Congress has abdicated, rather than asserted, its powers.
From its inception, the Bush administration adopted a confrontational, rather than collaborative, approach to Congress and emphasized partisan objectives instead of solutions that would command bipartisan support. On those occasions when President Bush sought to give life to the “compassionate” part of compassionate conservatism, Republicans in Congress often abandoned him.
The result has often been bad, and unsustainable, policy and a degradation of the civil discourse that helps forge consensus. Those responsible, as well as the nation, have paid a price; the course has been rejected at the polls and even conservative justices have rejected some of the administration’s assertions of power.
The Obama inauguration is, of course, unique; and its historic character represents a fourth basic ideal. The inauguration of our first president who is African-American celebrates in a profound way the pluralistic nature of America. That milestone is more poignant coming, as it does, one day after the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During the 1963 March on Washington in support of civil rights, Dr. King delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Monument at the other end of the National Mall from the Capitol.
President Obama’s inauguration represents an historic advance in America’s effort to overcome our greatest national disgrace, racial discrimination. Yet it is an advance toward, not a realization of, the dream. America has still not redeemed the “bad check” it has given African-Americans and other minorities, to borrow another metaphor from Dr. King’s speech.
President Obama’s inauguration provides an opportunity for a new beginning for our nation based on a reaffirmation of its bedrock ideals. The success of his administration, and our ability to overcome our current national crises, will turn in important part on the extent to which the ideals implicit in the inauguration ceremony inform the conduct of public business.
Joel K. Goldstein is an authority on the vice presidency and a professor of law at Saint Louis University School of Law.