Letters: An Inaugural for the 21st Century

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Re "Obama Offers a Liberal Vision: 'We Must Act' " (front page, Jan. 22):

The inauguration went above politics to our country's vast cultural sea change of inclusion.

Let us count the ways:

¶From Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, to the president's ringing "through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall" and explicit call for gay rights.

¶From Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Rev. Luis Leon and the poet Richard Blanco, to how in Mr. Blanco's words "20 children were marked absent today, and forever."

¶And from the interracial Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir to James Taylor and Beyoncé.

This inspiringly inclusive and maybe first thoroughly 21st-century inaugural shows that Barack Obama's re-election was a statement that change has truly come to America.

And "in the words of the old Negro spiritual" that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose spirit hovered over the inaugural, proclaimed 50 years ago, may we repeat — with greater hope this time — "at last!"

JAMES ADLER
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 22, 2013

To the Editor:

Tears, not words, were all I could muster in response to the president's ardent inclusion of "our gay brothers and sisters" in this ever-expanding American family. It is an amazing feeling to have grown up invisible and ashamed and to live to hear the president say, essentially, "I see you."

Thank you, Mr. President.

DAVID D. TURNER
New York, Jan. 22, 2013

To the Editor:

The second inauguration of Barack Obama affirms to the country the belief many of us held when we first witnessed him speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 on behalf of John Kerry, the nominee: that Mr. Obama was on a path toward greatness.

With health care reform, the closing down of two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), a steady hand in the Gulf oil spill, the strength shown against a stonewalling Congress, and an impressive win over Mitt Romney for a second term, President Obama has demonstrated that he is a leader for the times.

I hope that fair-minded Republicans and Democrats will wish the president a successful second term; that would mean a successful America in the eyes of the world.

ALFRED WADDELL
West Dennis, Mass., Jan. 22, 2013

To the Editor:

Re "Speech Gives Climate Goals Center Stage" (front page, Jan. 22): All of those who have sought to elicit remedial action on global climate change can take heart in President Obama's second Inaugural Address. The path toward the "sustainable energy sources" he says are required will be obstructed by foes determined to safeguard the interests of coal, oil and natural gas.

More than just merely being loath to challenge these interests, many members of Congress, including some from the president's own party, have championed them. We can only hope that the president's resolve, and his success at rallying our citizenry, can surpass the fierce opposition he will surely encounter. H. JAMES QUIGLEY Jr.
Stony Brook, N.Y., Jan. 22, 2013

The writer is a lecturer in the Sustainability Studies Program at Stony Brook University.

To the Editor:

Theodore Roosevelt once wrote of "the man ... in the arena," who, "if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

President Obama, with his Inaugural Address challenges on climate change, America's social vision, gay rights, guns, the social safety net, immigration, on what government is and should be, seems determined, in his second term, either to prevail, or to fail "while daring greatly."

RON BONN
San Diego, Jan. 22, 2013

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