Great to see our man Thomas Paine and his revolutionary legacy finding it’s way back into the forefront of political thought in this country, what with being so directly referenced by President Obama here in his inaugural address. There was a time, and a lengthy period of it, where this simply wasn’t done and wouldn’t be done thanks to the concerted effort to diminish Paine’s role and influence from the historical record by certain interests and ideologies within American politics. From what I understand there were even pictures of Paine on display at some of the inaugural events.

It’s also sadly telling, though not overly surprising, that even our vaunted literati of American history couldn’t even tag where these quotes came from.

“As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.”

That is as near as George W Bush has come to being impeached. It covers the legal black hole of Guantánamo Bay and its kangaroo courts, the overreaching powers of the Patriot Act, torture, warrantless wiretapping and all the other infractions of the civil liberties of Americans and foreigners alike that occurred under the outgoing administration. “We are ready to lead once more” is startlingly candid in its admission that, under Bush, the United States did not lead the world but attempted to bomb and bully it into submission.

The reference to “the rights of man” was salient. The title of Thomas Paine’s giant pamphlet prepared the way for Paine’s incognito appearance at the end of the speech, when Obama talked of Christmas night in 1776, when George Washingtonled his ragtag army across the ice-choked Delaware river to confront the British and Hessians who were encamped at Trenton, New Jersey. Obama spoke of “the timeless words” that “the father of our nation” ordered to be read to the American people: “Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].” The oddly bracketed “it” replaced the original end of the sentence, which was “came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

Every commentator I heard - including, surprisingly, the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin - assumed that the quotation came from Washington himself, but it is from Paine’s The Crisis. “With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents,” Obama said, and, again, the commentators assumed, mistakenly I think, that he was speaking only of the recession as it deepens, with increasing speed, into depression. But Paine’s authorship of those words suggests otherwise. The “common danger”, requiring “hope” and, more pointedly, “virtue” in order to “meet [and to repulse] it”, is surely as much the spectre of a dictatorial administration, emboldened by Dick Cheney’s theory of the “unitary executive”, and its dangerous freedom to abuse the rights of man, as it is the peconomic crisis….

I’ve read - or at least skimmed - every inaugural address since George Washington’s, and none comes close to so categorically rejecting the political philosophy and legislative record of the previous occupant of the White House. Obama did it by stealth - so much stealth that most of the red meat of the speech has so far passed largely unnoticed.

This is a really good review of the nature and substance of Obama’s address.

Read the complete article from The Guardian