I was ready to roll,Erin,until I felt Joseph Lowery spit in my white face...as I recall,several hundred thousand white men died to abolish slavery(something called the Civil War)

Here you go Luther. I totally disagree with Erin on this.

And Joseph Lowery can go fornicate himself.

I agree that the bit about white needing to make right was uncalled for -- and hit a bum note. Other bum notes were hit by Elizabeth Alexander and Aretha -- who seemed sadly out of voice.

John -- I'm not without my worries. But I really want to see this presidency work well for this country. I thought Obama hit a lot of resonant points in his speech -- about the value of American traditions and principles, the importance of the market as a means of generating wealth, the need to ensure people's ability to do their thing, whatever it might be, in obscurity, because that's where great ideas and innovations come from. I thought he was good on defense and, more generally, on setting an international tone. And I liked that he invoked personal responsibility, hard choices, setting aside childish things, and service. I also liked that his primary example of service was the military. So -- I know it's language. But today he begins putting the language into action. And I think he desperately wants to be remembered as the president who got us out of the mess we are in -- which will mean that he'll hopefully be a tough pragmatist, setting politics aside as much as he can in favor of simply doing what works. Call me naive. But I am hopeful.

"I think he desperately wants to be remembered as the president who got us out of the mess we are in"..probably true, but I'm not sure he understands that "the mess we are in" is pretty mild compared with some of the things that *can* happen. For example, while the current state of the economy is hurting many people, but it doesn't remotely compare with the Great Depression in the U.S. or the Great Inflation in Weimar Germany, or arguably even with the stagflation of the Carter era or of the sustained structural unemployment in many European countries. There are lots of policy "solutions" that can make things much worse, and I'm afraid that the guy really has no intuitive feel for how the economy really works. The same comparison of "the mess we're in" vs "the mess we *could* be in" holds true in defense/security matters.

I'm all for pragmatism, but the need to get something done shouldn't be used as an excuse to ignore the principles on which sound decision-making must be based. It's not a good thing if the airline captain says "Hey, I'm just trying to save this plane, I don't have time to worry about the laws of aerodynamics." Indeed, Capt Sullenberger (of the recent Hudson River incident) must have been sorely tempted to stretch the glide and try to make it to that nice concrete runway at Teterboro in preference to that cold river water...the survival of everyone on board was due to his ability to ignore this instinct. I don't think Obama has even a conceptual model of the economy that remotely compares with Capt Sullenberger's mental model of airspeed and angle of attack, much less than he has internalized it to the point of almost feeling it in his fingertips. (On the other hand, Obama's decisions are mostly ones that need to be made over timeframes of weeks and months, not over minutes and seconds)

BTW, there's a discussion of Obama's reading list over at Chicago Boyz which some may find interesting.

From the speech: “Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, [honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old.]” (brackets added)

I am greatly troubled by the inclusion of the word “tolerance” in the list of values specified above. The other values are clearly understood as positive and should be cultivated, but without modification the word tolerance and the concept of it, is meaningless at best. At worst it is the beginning of a slippery slope that leads to moral equivalence. Are we to tolerate all religions, creeds and political systems? Even those that violate freedom and dignity? All behavior, no matter how vile or repugnant? Are we never to judge or discriminate, even when judgment and discrimination are called for? It’d be great if it was self evident that tolerance didn’t mean what I just said it could mean. But it is not self evident. In public schools today, children are taught that the value of tolerance, without modification, is the same as the value of honesty and hard work. They are told never to judge and that to discriminate is evil. That means that children, or anyone who buys into the value of tolerance per se, can never build a moral value system, because a moral system can’t be built without determining that some things are good and others aren’t. Now we have a president who proclaims in his inaugural speech that tolerance is the same as honesty and hard work, and that our country was built on that value. He should be mindful that intolerance for slavery was the reason why hundreds of thousands of Americans were willing to die to end it. I would also suggest that he and others stop using that pernicious word that keeps us (especially children and those who teach them) from being able to define what is worthwhile and what isn’t. I hope the inclusion of that word was merely rhetorical and/or the result of sloppy usage, but I fear it was a nod to political correctness, and an embrace of moral equivalence.

Dossier: Regarding tolerance, I believe that one of the great challenges of our era is to what extent (and in what manner) we tolerate individuals, regimes, institutions, etc. that are themselves intolerant. This does not mean, however, that I do not believe in the value of tolerance. To the contrary. Showing tolerance, even empathy, toward people who have different customs, creeds, and racial backgrounds seems uncontroversial to me. (The alternative is unthinkably frightening.) As for political and moral value systems, there is room for some diversity without descending into moral chaos. To my mind, tolerance based on empathy and engagement with other points of view *is* a virtue.

As a footnote, hard work is hardly unproblematical: it all depends on what you are working for. None of this is new, bu the way. (See Aristotle on virtue as moderation.)

Peter: Agreed hard work is hardly unproblematic, for the reason you stated, same for loyalty and even patriotism. Put them on a list of slippery words like tolerance if you wish, I won’t disagree. But I think honesty, fair play, courage and curiosity are clear cut virtues and belong on a list of their own. Just for the record, I said nothing about race, and was pretty clear about what religions, creeds and political systems I wouldn’t tolerate---those that violate freedom and dignity.

Don't worry. The One will tell you what you are supposed to tolerate and what is intolerable.

Just cede your individual will to The State. You don't need to worry about these ethical questions anymore.

Barack Obama understands that as a nation, the United States cannot ignore the educational needs of our students. “These kids syndrome, the tendency to explain away the shortcomings and failures of our educational system by saying that ‘these kids’ can’t learn, or ‘these kids’ don’t want to learn, or ‘these kids’ are too far behind” said Obama. “We are not a ‘these kids’ nation, we’re a ‘our kids’ nation.”

Click here to see the full video.

David Foster, I ask you to differentiate between tolerance, acceptance, and agreement.

Tolerance means not imposing your value systems on the way others live their lives. It does not mean accepting their value systems into your life, and it does not mean your children should not be taught how to make determination on their own, based on the moral and ethical code in which they're raised.

One can be morally opposed to a number of things, but tolerate them in others. The need is to teach our children and families the difference. Nothing wrong with teaching your children that according to your moral code, something is wrong, but that others don't see it as such. This is fundamental to understanding other cultures and other value systems. Expecting the world to live by one standard is neither practical nor, in my opinion, desirable.