“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expediency’s sake.”
President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009
I love words, especially well crafted words that set forth an idea with cadence and convincing clarity. I love the poetry of William Carlos Williams and Edna St. Vincent Millay. I love the novels of William Faulkner and John Barth. I love the humor of H. L. Mencken and Walt Kelly. I collect the words of all of these people in the many books I have difficulty storing with the proper care which is their due.
I also love a great speech: President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural speech in 1933; Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech delivered on the Washington DC mall; Edward R. Murrow’s broadcast on the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. I am not certain where President Obama’s speech ranks with these, but I can say that it improves with each new listening due to its thread of logic, its common sense and the spirit with which it is imbued. I like it much better this morning after my third hearing than I did while it was being given live.
Notwithstanding my love of well crafted words, I am always far more impressed with the actions that people take than what they say they will do. Ultimately, my judgment of others is determined by what they do rather than what they say. Words are often used as smokescreens, especially by politicians; words are often the politician’s sleight of hand, used either to mask inaction and indecision or actively used as a form of misdirection. Especially when judging politicians, one must carefully measure their words against their actions to arrive at some measure of a politician’s true worth.
Yesterday’s rhetoric was profound. The new President’s inaugural speech promises much and reads well in text format. But more impressive to me is the fact that the new administration, within a matter of two or three hours from the moment of its inception, took its first baby steps in making good on President Obama’s promise quoted above. He refers in the above statement, of course, to our Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and his subsequent action shows him to be a man of his words as well as a man who is good with words. I am referring to his direction yesterday to government prosecutors to file motions with the Guantanamo military tribunals to halt their proceedings.
This action, coming as it did on his first day in office within mere hours of his taking the oath of office, is the strongest indication yet that President Obama may not be just another politician. It is too soon to know if he will earn and deserve the accolade of “statesman,” but it is not too soon to understand that he is a man with the courage of his convictions and that we might trust his word. During his campaign, he promised that he would act swiftly to end these trials and his actions yesterday speak far louder than the words with which he made that promise. Now, we can await the follow through with hope and the beginnings of belief.
It is clear to me that President Obama has a basic understanding of something I have labored hard to teach my sons and my mentees: trust is never conferred, it must be earned; and while it is always earned slowly, it can be lost quickly by means of a single mistake. President Obama said as much in his own way when he said: “In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.” To be seen as a great nation by the rest of the world, we must first earn their trust.
One of the two great failings of the previous administration was its almost total dissipation, in 8 short years, of the trust which Americans had painstakingly earned from the rest of the world through the efforts of so many over the long generations of our forebears. President Obama’s election has given me the hope that perhaps not all of the world’s good will toward us has been squandered. His reception overseas in the Fall of last year gave hope that some reservoir of good will remained; that the world retained a nascent faith in our goodness and that trust in us might thereby be rekindled. If so, it will be by the actions of our new government and not by its words. Yesterday’s order to the government prosecutors may prove to be the initial spark of ignition.
The second great failing of the previous administration was to fall prey to the notion that basic values are disposable in the face of fear and attack. Tossing aside our values at the first hint of fear was a denial of the greatness of our nation; tossing aside our values at the first hint of fear sent a message to the world that our then-leaders had no sense of our history or the forces that caused so many immigrants from so many parts of the world to come together on our shores as one people – as Americans; tossing aside our values at the first hint of fear was an act of profound moral cowardice when measured against the teachings of our Bill of Rights.
By his action in issuing yesterday’s order on the Guantanamo military trials, President Obama announced to the world that he understands not only that the United States cannot be true unto itself while denying its basic values, but that it can only do so by always acting in complete accordance with the strictures contained within those values. He understands that a government cannot mouth ideals while simultaneously acting differently than their teachings would allow without causing serious, lasting damage to the nation’s heart and soul. He understands that the contribution made by our Founders to the concept of “civilization” – our magnificent Bill of Rights – means nothing if it is honored only in the easiest of times and is quickly cast aside at the first hint of difficulty.
The false patriots who populated the previous administration were not the only persons appalled and alarmed at the events of September 11, 2001, yet they acted as if theirs was the only right and true response. Their reaction was contrary to the spirit of 1776; the spirit that is imbued in our Bill of Rights. While it is right and proper to fight back when attacked, it is profoundly unpatriotic to do so with actions that are manifestly improper when measured against our most basic statement of values. To act in contravention of those values while wrapping yourself in the folds of the American flag is not only the worst form of hypocrisy, it is, most simply, unpatriotic.
So while I loved President Obama’s inaugural words, I was far more impressed with his actions. He could have waited until today or tomorrow to act without significant loss of face, but he didn’t do so. He sent the strongest possible message that America is reasserting its values by taking this action within the merest fraction of time from the moment when he actually became our 44th President.
And in that one small action is the seed for the restoration of our greatness on the world stage; in that one small action is the seed of the restoration of our self respect. If we can regain our self respect, we can once again look at life clearly and not through the fog of induced fear. We will then be able to see the world through our own eyes and not through clouded glasses, color-coded by governmental decree. We can, as President Obama adjured us to do, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin the work of remaking America.
I would always prefer for us to fail while trying to do the right thing in accordance with the strictures of our values, than for us to seek the cocoon of safety while denying our birthright. The former is the true American spirit; the latter only dooms us to the dustbin of former nations. Only by constantly striving to do what is right can we proudly wear the title of “Americans.” Only by constantly striving to do what is right can we continue to meet the ongoing challenge of the standards created for us by our Founders.
I am proud that we are once again honoring our values. They have been too long missing from the decision making processes of our government, and their return to prominence in so short a time under the new administration is grounds for great celebration. Their return is cause for each of us to look forward in hope, instead of backwards in despair. This small action spoke more thunderously than President Obama’s own words, and it was most welcome.
