the elevator pitch

Onlookers gather at Wayne Gretzky’s in Toronto to watch the broadcast of Barack Obama’s inauguration. (Photo by Julia Pelish)

What a downer.

Here three million people gathered in a freezing capital to witness the ascent of the keeper of New Hope and Barack Obama went all Darth Vader, talking about gathering clouds and raging storms and threats about bringing order to the universe. If only the 21-gun salute could have been made to sound the tune of “The Imperial March”.

Maybe someone was sending Obama BlackBerry updates on the plunging stock market, or maybe the cliff’s edge is closer than anyone thinks.

Obama’s inauguration speech – one of the most anticipated moments of oratory since Moses descended Mount Sinai – was supposed to be bombastic and full of the kind of sunshine that so drizzled from his campaign rhetoric. But times have changed. The world is different than it was on November 4 and so are Obama’s ambitions.

He no longer wants to urge change as he needs to quell optimism. The expectations for him are too great to reach and he’s bright enough to recognize it. By continuing to tell Americans times are bad and going to get worse, he is aiming to give himself more days or weeks before their will that had bent toward him snaps back.

Give Obama high marks for invoking George Washington and comparing the struggles of Americans past with the challenges of Yanks of today. No one will deny that Obama’s an extraordinary speechwriter and speechmaker, but what he suggests as a solution to the country’s financial crisis may be as far-fetched as a fairytale. Obama is trying, speech after speech, to rouse an American who has grown increasingly fat, lazy, stupid and childless. Their motivation is weak and their reasons to be motivated aren’t as great as previous generations. Those are obstacles for Obama, too.

Americans marked history with his arrival as their 44th president but, as their new leader says, they are the ones who are responsible for the nation’s future. That’s a dramatic shift in the script that got him elected: He was supposed to usher in change. Not instantly, but not a moribund pace and certainly not with unanticipated sacrifice from the people who voted him in.

Maybe Obama knows Americans better than us critics. But something indicates that a people came together today wishing to feel the glory of summer in the middle of wintertime, and what the new president gave them was a cold reality check. How they take it will determine his future as well as theirs, and the world’s.

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