New president cites old virtues, deep traditions

ANALYSIS

updated 3:16 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2009

WASHINGTON - As he became a precedent-shattering president Tuesday, Barack Obama wrapped himself in America's deepest traditions, invoking God, the Bible, the Founding Fathers, cherished documents and old-fashioned virtues.

The nation's challenges may be new and frightening, Obama said, but the values that will conquer them "are old," and Americans must "return to these truths." His election might be a dramatic turn in U.S. politics, he suggested, but it did not produce a radical leader seeking unproven remedies.

Throughout his campaign to become the first black president, Obama rarely mentioned race unless asked, and he carefully avoided being branded the "black candidate."

Stressed familiar themes
In a similar vein Tuesday, he stressed familiar themes of American governance, with only scant references to the historic dimensions of his achievement (as when he noted that his black father "might not have been served" at Washington restaurants decades ago). An American named Barack Hussein Obama, with a father from Kenya, is as deeply rooted in Bunker Hill as any descendant of the Mayflower's passengers, he seemed to say.

Obama started the day with a service at "the presidents' church," St. John's Episcopal near the White House, where every president since James Madison has worshipped. He planned to end it with the traditional visit to each of the 10 official balls, including brief remarks and a dance with his wife. At some point in between he hoped to enter the Oval Office for the first time as president, said his spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Obama kept his demeanor cool and calm during his midday inaugural address, not trying to push the millions of viewers to new levels of fervor. There were no "I have a dream" crescendos, although he acknowledged "the bitter swill of civil war and segregation."

'Full measure of happiness'
He did not try the inverted syntax of "Ask not what your country can do for you." But he echoed John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln when he urged Americans to "choose our better history" by advancing "that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."

He even added a whisper of Shakespeare ("this winter of our hardship"), but he served up few obvious applause lines and no over-the-top rhetoric.

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