Marbury

what obama didn't say

There are quite enough images of the Obamas around today so here's the next First Couple. (In Joe's head.) Jill looks lovely, does she not?

I feel a bit like a grinch at the party for saying so but I wasn't as impressed as most of the press were by Obama's speech yesterday.

Yes, it was a statement of unabashed liberalism, which reflected the scale of his achievement and the extent to which key liberal goals - racial equality, equality for gays - are finally being met. Yes, it made the case for government in a way that Clinton wouldn't have dared. Its boldness, such as it was (and it was too soapy and vague to be called brave), was impressive.

But other than that, what did he really say? He said that government has had a big role to play in America's greatness. Well, OK, but actually, aside from Tea Partiers and the NRA, that's not necessarily a statement with which most Americans would disagree. More importantly, the speech didn't give Americans a vision of the future. It didn't show them the way ahead, as Lincoln did in his second inaugural. In fact it perpetuated the illusion that government can carry on pretty much as it is.

I said it's a speech that Clinton wouldn't have dared make but actually, his declaration that "the era of big government is over" was braver than anything Obama said yesterday. It played against expectations; Democrats aren't supposed to say that sort of thing. It also hinted at a truth that Obama either hasn't faced up to or isn't prepared to ask voters to face up to: America's government can't afford to sustain its obligations in their current form.

America has a massive, rising welfare bill, an ageing population, and a perilously high pile of debt. Not to mention a defence budget designed for a more imperial era. One way or another, whether it's via a Capitol Hill induced car crash or a planned unwinding, the government that did such an effective job of sustaining and spreading the benefits of America's post-war dynamism has to change - to get smaller, nimbler, and more efficient.

If Obama had made the case for government, and then warned that government needs to be reinvented, and that this will mean tough and sometimes painful choices, then that really would have been bold. It would also have been true.

modern family

hands off that bible

I don't agree with every point Cornel West makes in this impromptu speech, protesting the fact that Obama will be using Martin Luther King's bible to take the oath of office. But my god, this guy can testify:

It's always been possible to detect a little scepticism or even resentment of Obama's implicit positioning of himself and his presidency as the consummation of MLK's dream, among African-American scholars and politicians. You can hear it in West's invocation of his grandmother - Obama, after all, is not the descendant of slaves, or of blacks involved in the civil rights struggle. He adopted his cultural and political parents. He's not quite one of us. But then, as Obama himself has recognised, he is a sojourner, not fully at home in any one community or tradition.

america vs. britain in charts

Otto Neurath, born in 1882, was an Austrian sociologist and philosopher who, together with his wife Marie, invented the visual language that formed the basis of modern infographics.

Over at Brainpickings, Maria Popova tracked down an out-of-print book called America and Britain. It compares Britain to America across a series of political, sociological and cultural criteria, using a series of Neurath's beautiful pictograms to bring the information alive. Like these ones:

You can view more infographical jewels from the book here.

that old magic

I fundamentally just don't trust anyone that doesn't love Joe Biden.

Maureen Dowd has written a wonderful sketch of the Senate's swearing-in, over which Biden presides.

Fresh from his deal-making triumph with Mitch McConnell — no Tickle Monster, he — Biden presided over the Senate ceremonial swearing-in and lived up to his reputation for “bringing sexy back to the Medicare-eligible set,” as Politico once put it.

Every time Biden spied a member’s mom, he called out with utter delight, “Mom!” as though she were his own, enfolding the glowing woman in a tender embrace.

“Mom, I’ll see you in a little bit,” he flirted with the mother of Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. “I hope I’ll sneak over and see you.” To the mother of Senator Deb Fischer, a new Republican from Nebraska, he cooed, “You’ve got beautiful eyes, Mom.”

Here's the vid - favourite bit is 25 secs in.

me and u.s.

 

Jasper Johns, Flag

Before Christmas, I was delighted to be asked by Matthew Taylor at the RSA to contribute to the RSA's Fellowship newsletter. He asked me to to write something about my relationship with America and its politics. It's not online at the RSA's site, but if you're interested, here it is:

My father, who became a lifelong devotee of Frank Sinatra from the moment when, as a teenager in the north of England, he first heard The Voice on an EP brought home by his sister, used to point out to me that although Sinatra would have been a great singer wherever he was born, things might not have been quite the same if he'd been British. To see instantly what he meant by this, try singing I've Got You Under My Skin in a Yorkshire accent.

American culture had and retains a glamour Britain struggles to match. My dad and I used to play a game which involved inserting British towns into the titles of popular American songs, producing timeless classics like Burnley On My Mind, Do You Know The Way To Shrewsbury?, and that old crowd-pleaser, York, York. British placenames have a beauty of their own, of course, and there was a time when the sound of the word Birmingham must have crackled with the electricity of Chicago. But the music of an old country is different from that of a young one.

So are its politics. I have always been a political geek. As a twelve-year-old boy I knew more than most of my classmates (well, all of my classmates) about the results of Labour's shadow cabinet elections, or who was likely to take Social Security in Mrs Thatcher's forthcoming reshuffle. But even then, and even though I knew much less about it, I knew that American politics was where the real action was – even if it somehow enabled a trigger-happy old buffoon to wield destructive power over the planet.

When I was 28 I moved to New York, where I was to stay for four years. Instead of reading reports in British newspapers I was now getting the real thing, the uncut stuff, from CBS and ABC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. I realised that the coverage of American politics in Britain made it seem dumber and madder than it is (even though it is frequently both). Just as history had shown that Ronald Reagan was a figure of more subtlety and substance than the British press allowed for, so I discovered that American politics isn't as dominated by wild-eyed religious loonies as I'd been led to believe (I'm not saying the Rapturous ones aren't a force, but they are one among others).

I also discovered that, in the United States, politics isn't restricted to politics. More so than in Britain, it's part of the national conversation, on the street, in the bars and diners, on the radio and on late-night TV talk shows.  Actually, 'conversation' implies something a little too decorous: it's more like a raucous, rowdy and occasionally ugly family row. For all its flaws, however, politics there is part of everyday life in a way that isn't true here. Unless you count Question Time.

But if American politics got under my skin it wasn't because it represented some noble democratic ideal, but because it was a source of the best and the biggest stories (I'm a writer, after all). An American presidential election is the highest narrative form democracy ever created. It is an epic drama, played out on the grandest of stages, containing all the Greek themes: power, money, war, fate, family, human ambition and human frailty. Its structure is essentially gladitorial: every four years, the combatants enter the arena knowing that by the end only one will be left standing. Their fortunes trace long, criss-crossing arcs that end in disappointment, disaster, or – for one man or woman and their legions of supporters - triumph. In dramatic terms, at least, it beats proportional representation. 

When I returned to Britain in 2002, British politics seemed cramped and provincial by comparison. Front page headlines had the flavour of a gossip column in a local newspaper reporting on the machinations of the parish council. Was Gordon upset with Tony this week? It was hard to care. 

Having said that, mundanity in a democracy isn't necessarily a bad sign. If our politics aren't as exciting as America's, that may simply be a sign of our maturity: of our knack, practiced over centuries, for muddling along with each other.

The wounds of America's formative battles are fresher. The modern U.S. political map can be overlaid on a map of the civil war alliances without too much being obscured. The fires have been submerged but they burn just beneath the soil, producing fury and bitterness but also heroism and poetry.

I can't resist the great American story, or its politics – they are so deep in my heart that they're really a part of me. Every four years I'm surprised to find I don't get to vote.