What should Obama read?
It's not likely that he will get much of a chance to read today. Obama takes the oath of office at 5.00 pm (GMT), which is followed by lunch, an inauguration parade, dinner, and a tour of all ten official inauguration balls. Which means, according to the , the Obamas will make it to the White House for their first evening of rest in their new home at nearly 2.30 am, local time. ( the Official inauguration website.)
The inauguration theme is "A New Birth of Freedom", a phrase taken from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The former senator from Illinois, Lincoln's state, has been stoking his speeches with Lincolnian echoes; he followed Lincoln's path to Washington via train, and when he takes the oath of office today, he will place his hand on the same Bible used by Lincoln in his inauguration. In 1999, during a presidential debate, George W. Bush was asked to name his favourite political thinker or philosopher. The future president said, "Jesus Christ. Because he changed my life." I suspect Obama's answer would be, "Abraham Lincoln. Because he reunited America."
After Lincoln, he may name the American theologian . Obama once described Niebuhr as "one of my favorite philosophers". Asked which books Obama should have beside the Lincoln bed, Andrew J. Bacevich, a Boston University professor, has chosen Neibuhr's Irony of American History. I think it's an inspired choice. Bacevich explains:
"Published in 1952, when the Cold War was at its frostiest and Americans were still coming to terms with what it meant to exercise global leadership, Irony called attention to a series of illusions to which Niebuhr believed his countrymen and their political leaders were peculiarly susceptible. To persist in those illusions, he warned, was to court political and moral catastrophe. History, he wrote, "is enacted in a frame of meaning too large for human comprehension or management." To imagine that history can be coerced toward some predetermined destination represents the height of folly.
"With the end of the Cold War in 1989, those very same illusions--now expressed through self-congratulatory claims that the end of history had elevated the United States to the status of indispensable nation called upon to exercise benign global hegemony--gained a rebirth. In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush embraced those illusions and made them the foundation of his global war on terror. The catastrophes that ensued testify eloquently to the enduring relevance of the warnings that Niebuhr had issued a half century earlier.
"To correct the errors of the Bush era will require that Obama repudiate the illusions that gave rise to those errors in the first place. In that regard, Irony should serve as an essential text. A first rule of statecraft, Niebuhr writes, is to nurture a "modest awareness of the limits of our own knowledge and power." Modesty doesn't imply passivity. It does mean curbing the inclination to portray our adversaries as evil incarnate while insisting that we ourselves are innocent and our purposes altruistic.
"Niebuhr observed that "the pretensions of virtue are as offensive to God as the pretensions of power." After eight years that gave us Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and waterboarding, our pretensions of virtue look a bit worse for wear. The imperative of the moment is to manifest "a sense of contrition about the human frailties and foibles which lie at the foundation of both the enemy's demonry and our own vanities."
It's only one of many book suggestions listed , from William James's The Will to Believe, to Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This list is policy-focused: advice on decision-making, how to interpret the world, health policy in response to Aids, building consensus, the power of collaboration, and the like.
Your suggestions? And, particularly, books that will help the new president negotiate his way round the complex and interconnected world of religion and ethics.
Comment number 1.
At 20th Jan 2009, smasher-lagru wrote:A book on how to tell the time so he doesn't show up to take the oath at 11am (GMT) as William suggests -that would be six in the morning Eastern Standard and might confuse the schedulers.
I think he should read any thing by the late Fr Richard John Neuhaus, a friend of Martin Luther King Jnr, who saw that the pro-life movement was the natural successor of the civil rights movement.
It's a big day for America and we wish him well and will keep him in our prayers.
Perhaps now that that barrier has been broken, the UK could embrace the possibility of a Catholic head of state.
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Comment number 2.
At 20th Jan 2009, William Crawley (±«Óãtv) wrote:You got me, Smasher. I've corrected the kickoff time.
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Jan 2009, William Crawley (±«Óãtv) wrote:While we're chatting, Smasher, I agree that Fr John Neuhaus was a major cultural figure in American political and religious life. The connection you make between abortion and civil rights is a controversial one, needless to say. But if the connection could be made, it could be made by John Neuhaus. See his article from 2002 ( recently re-published in the journal he founded and edited.
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Comment number 4.
At 20th Jan 2009, MarcusAureliusII wrote:I think he should read the oath of office again and again to remind himself that he is sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and that he is NOT the president of the world and is not accountable to it when it conflicts with his oath no matter what any treaty says.
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Comment number 5.
At 20th Jan 2009, Heliopolitan wrote:Will, need you ask? "The God Delusion" by Dawkins, of course! ;-)
-H
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Comment number 6.
At 20th Jan 2009, gveale wrote:Good point. If Obama wants a "broad church" approach, shouldn't Sam Harris be refusing to pray at the ceremony?
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Comment number 7.
At 20th Jan 2009, John Wright wrote:Incredible scene.
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Comment number 8.
At 20th Jan 2009, petermorrow wrote:John
You are obviously overcome, maybe it's the heat, but what scene, and why is it incredible?
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Comment number 9.
At 20th Jan 2009, nobledeebee wrote:Who said, " I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, NOR OF QUALIFYING THEM TO HOLD OFFICE, nor to intermarry with white people...
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Comment number 10.
At 20th Jan 2009, John Wright wrote:Peter-
I've been watching the inauguration; nobody seems to know how many people were there but it was clearly seven figures... amazing. There was a lot of expectation for Obama's speech and ultimately maybe too much, but this is a historic day to be sure, and there's a hell of a lot riding on what it leads to... here and around the world.
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Comment number 11.
At 20th Jan 2009, John Wright wrote:By the way, did any of you atheists notice Obama's mention of you in his speech? ..."and unbelievers...
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Comment number 12.
At 20th Jan 2009, MarcusAureliusII wrote:John #11, yes we infidels, the faithless ones. How nice to feel I've been invited into "the big tent." Now how do I get the hell out of here, those camels are killing me with their...
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Comment number 13.
At 20th Jan 2009, petermorrow wrote:So you're telling me John, that God has failed to answer the Bishop's prayer?
"and the understanding that our new President is a human being, not a messiah."
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Comment number 14.
At 21st Jan 2009, MarcusAureliusII wrote:On Saint Obama day, even god had to kneel down and pray for "the annointed one."
Hail Obama Senator of Illinois
Hail Obama President of the USA
Hail Obama, savior of the world
Today is for celebrating. Tomorow and tomorrow and tomorrow is for getting back to reality. Politics is a tale told by and idiot.....
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Comment number 15.
At 21st Jan 2009, Orville Eastland wrote:I think he should read Scott Ritter's "Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destructiona nd the Bushwacking of America". Ritter was a UN weapons inspector, who publicly stated in 2000 that Iraq was effectively disarmed. It gives a great deal of information on why the case for the Iraq War was false, and is ample justification for impeachment and/or prosecution of both Bush and his administration, and many Democrats as well (Including Bill Clinton and Joe Biden...)
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Comment number 16.
At 21st Jan 2009, PeterKlaver wrote:Hi Orvillethird,
Bill or Hillary? What official position was Bill in to abuse when W Bush became president?
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Comment number 17.
At 22nd Jan 2009, dennisjunior1 wrote:William:
Read the history of the previous administration and do not repeat that it....
~Dennis Junior~
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Comment number 18.
At 22nd Jan 2009, MarcusAureliusII wrote:I said he should have read the oath over and over again. Then he would have gotten it right the first time. Perhaps Chief Justice Roberts should read it over and over again too. Based on some of his judicial rulings, I don't think he took it seriously or maybe he just doesn't understand it. Maybe I should go down to Washington DC and explain it to the two of them.
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Comment number 19.
At 22nd Jan 2009, Orville Eastland wrote:Well, Bill Clinton was in office when the first reports came through (Kamil 1995, Ritter 2000) that Iraq did not have WMD. Clinton insisted that Iraq had WMD, using it as justification for Operation Desert Fox. (This can get him charged with waging a war of agression, which has been illegal in the USA since Kellogg/Briand, not to mention making false statements to Congress.)
Further, even after he was out of office, he continued to push for military action against Iraq. As he said in 2004, "You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over."
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