Inauguration Day

Historic is an overused term but not today.

This morning, I'll head over to the Providence Performing Arts Center to watch on a giant screen as 47-year-old Barack Hussein Obama take the oath of office to become the first African-American president of the United States.

I've been to one inauguration - Bill Clinton's first, in 1993. It's very exciting to be there and such an honor to see the leader of your country take the oath of office.

I was in the middle of a huge, festive crowd, probably the biggest I've ever been in. I remember it was a clear, cold day. My feet were freezing from standing in the same spot for hours. I still have the inaugural ticket that I got from my congressman but I don't remember that anyone ever checked it. I'm sure things will be much different today.

The Capitol looked beautiful and so timeless - gleaming white, decked out in red-white-and-blue bunting. Maya Angelou recited a poem. Marilyn Horne sang. I was hanging on every word of Clinton's address, trying to remember some line that would live in history. Sadly, it wasn't very memorable. I'm expecting better from Obama.

On NPR yesterday I heard an interview with Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a veteran of the civil-rights movement. Lewis talked about how when he was growing up in Alabama, black people could not register to vote. It is amazing how far we've come.

I'm thrilled that surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen will be in Washington for the inauguration. I was at a dinner once where one of these courageous black World War II veterans spoke and his story was truly inspiring. Members of the Little Rock Nine, who endured jeers and threats to integrate Central High School in 1957, will be there, too.

"The arc of the moral universe is long," Martin Luther King once said, "but it bends toward justice."

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Today marks the 15th anniversary of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which forces gay and lesbian Americans to hide their sexual orientation if they want to serve in the military. Time magazine has an article about it.

I have to admit that when President Bill Clinton announced the policy shortly after his inauguration in 1993, I didn't give it much thought. I didn't work with anyone who was openly gay. I didn't have any friends who were openly gay. I knew that Clinton, having grown up in the segregated South, saw it as a civil rights issue, but I wondered why he picked it to focus on so early in his first term. I didn't appreciate why it was so significant, and why "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was such a degrading policy.

Well, things have changed since then. Today, almost everyone I know works with someone or has friends or relatives who are openly gay or lesbian. I have close friends, colleagues, people I love and admire, who are gay. While things are far from perfect, as a society we have moved toward a greater understanding that a person's sexual orientation is something they're born with, and in the end, it's not a big deal, just part of what makes that person a unique individual.

I can't even comprehend how horrible, how suffocating it would be for someone I know and love to be in the closet, to fear what would happen to them if they came out. It's inhumane to expect someone to live that way. And the policy that I didn't give much thought to 15 years ago, today seems unfair, discriminatory, ridiculous and absolutely un-American.

There is no reason why, if someone wants to serve their country, they should be forced to hide something so basic about themselves. That's not what this country is supposed to be about. It goes against our values as an open, democratic, free, egalitarian nation. And I think it's a shame that the debate isn't framed that way.

While I've never been in the military, I have lived in a country - Israel - where gays serve openly. And no one would say that Israel doesn't have a strong army, that its soldiers don't face implacable enemies every bit as tough as those U.S. soldiers face in Iraq. During the year I spent in Israel, I felt totally secure that I had a strong, skilled army helping to keep me safe.

Here's what a gay ex-officer in the Israel Defense Forces had to say on the subject, and what Americans could learn from Israel. And here's a study from the Michael D. Palm Center on the impact of gays and lesbians serving openly in the Israeli army. The conclusion: "Our findings are that Israel’s decision to lift its gay ban had no impact on performance and that despite differences between the two cases, lessons from the Israeli experience are relevant for determining what would happen if the U.S. Congress and Pentagon lifted the American gay ban."

And here's a commentary from the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, arguing forcefully that the ban should be lifted. He says, in part, "Nobody thought that blacks or women could ever be integrated into the military. Many thought that an all-volunteer force could never protect our national interest. Well, it has, and despite those who feared the worst - I among them - we are still the best and will continue to be."

Passing the torch

I'm not sure whether it'll have much of an imapct, but I think it's pretty interesting that Caroline Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

For a progressive Democratic politician, being anointed the heir to John F. Kennedy is pretty much like finding the Holy Grail. I mean, how many people over the years have told Caroline that they got into politics because of her father? Countless, I'm sure. And every one of them, I'm sure, would love to have had her blessing. (Poor John Forbes Kerry even had the same initials. It didn't help).

I was struck by the forcefulness of Kennedy's opinion piece in Sunday's New York Times. Here's the quote that really stood out: "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

Ok, I realize that Obama is running against Hillary Clinton, not Bill. Or maybe he is. Still, I couldn't help but wonder how Bill Clinton must have felt when he read that. Given Clinton's closeness to the Kennedy family over the years, he must have thought, Why Obama and not me? I mean it's like the unkindest cut of all. Just think of the ubiquitous picture of a teenage Clinton, delegate from Arkansas to the Boys Nation convention in July 1963, shaking hands with President Kennedy.

Here's what Bill Clinton said in 1998 at a dinner for the Kennedy Library Foundation: "I think I should begin by saying that for me this is not an obligation, it is an honor, not only because like every other member of my generation I was inspired by President Kennedy but because Hillary and Chelsea and I have been profoundly moved by the uncommon kindnesses of this family to ours."

I was at Clinton's first inauguration, in 1993, and I remember standing in front of the United States Capitol on a very cold January morning, in the largest crowd I'd ever been in. It was so exciting to be there, to be a part of history, to see the Capitol all decked out in red, white and blue bunting. There was a certain timeless quality to the whole ceremony. Someone standing near me said that her parents had been at Kennedy's inauguration, in January 1961.

Of course, everyone can recite a line or two from JFK's inaugural address: "Ask not what your country can do for you." "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans." Those phrases are taught in school, they're part of our collective memory, right up there with "I have a dream" and "Fourscore and seven years ago."

When Clinton spoke, I was really straining for some sentence, some phrase, that I would always remember, that would become a part of history, just like John F. Kennedy's speech. But that moment never came. I don't remember one word of what he said. In fact, the only quote from Clinton that anyone can remember is, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

I can still remember snippets of Obama's keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. There was his slightly self-deprecating tone: "the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too." He talked about how we're not Red state America or Blue state America, but simply the United States of America: "We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States." And there was a nod to faith: "It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work."

After Clinton's inauguration, I figured that politicians simply didn't make memorable speeches anymore. Whatever you think about Obama as a candidate, he does renew my faith in great political oratory. People who compare him with Jesse Jackson are off base. I've heard Jackson, and he's a mesmerizing speaker. But his cadence and delivery come from the church. Obama sounds more like a traditional politician, but a politician in the JFK mold - someone who uses language to unite and inspire Americans.

The more I think about it, I can certainly see why Caroline Kennedy felt inspired to make her endorsement - and why she never felt so inspired to say the same things about Bill Clinton. (And don't get me started on Clinton's signing of the vile Defense of Marriage Act or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a move that enshrined discrimination as public policy).

Kennedy wrote that as a mother of three teenagers, she wants a president who will inspire young people. The generation that's coming of age today, she says, feels hopeless and disengaged. What's important is not so much that Obama reminds her of her father, but her sense that Obama represents a generational shift similar to the one that occurred when JFK succeeded Dwight Eisenhower. (If Obama is elected, for the first time in my life I'll be older than the president of the United States.)

I bet that contrast will become even more stark if Obama ends up as the Democratic nominee and John McCain wins the Republican nod. You go to McCain's Web site, and there's a giant picture of McCain. The first image you see on Obama's Web site is the youthful candidate surrounded by his loving, attractive family. I mean, look at that picture. This could be Kennedy/Nixon all over again.

As someone who's always been fascinated by the sixties, the endorsement made me think of a time in the early part of that decade when we were confident of our place in the world, the future looked limitless and America was on the cusp of change. (Go watch Hairspray right now). Are we there again? I don't know. But it's intriguing to think about.