The Remaking of America

January 21, 2009 | Tom Vogel

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
New York Times
January 21, 2009

At the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency in January 2001, the Web site The Onion declared: “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.”

That was supposed to be satire, but in retrospect it proved a shrewd analysis. One measure of the bleak trajectory of the last eight years is that today The Onion looks equally astute when it says of the latest transition: “Black man given nation’s worst job.”

That man is making an excellent start, and news Web sites all over the world capture the globe’s eagerness — even desperation — for American leadership.

“Let the remaking of America begin today,” declared The Guardian, in Britain. The Independent called Inauguration Day “a day for hope.”

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of “a truly great hour for America” that offered “a multitude of opportunities.” The Times of India welcomed “a new beginning.” In Northern Ireland, The Belfast Telegraph asked: “Can Obama save us all?”

A BBC poll in 17 nations found that on average 67 percent believed that President Obama would improve America’s relations with the rest of the world; just 5 percent thought the opposite (or maybe feared that if they seemed critical of George W. Bush, they would be waterboarded).

Two themes were particularly reassuring in Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address. One was his inclusiveness, his effort to tug people into his big tent, a huge contrast from Mr. Bush’s years of governing from an ideological pup tent.

President Obama’s inclusiveness started with his celebration of America as a patchwork of “Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers.” If you know of any other sitting president who has dared to embrace atheists (Thomas Jefferson did, but not while in office), post the information on my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground).

Mr. Obama was also the first president to use the word “Muslim” in an Inaugural Address. In an oblique olive branch that I took to be directed toward Iran and Syria, he said: “We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

The second reassuring theme has to do with “hard power” and “soft power,” in the terminology of Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor. In the Bush-Cheney years, America sought to rely overwhelmingly on military “hard power,” and the result was setbacks around the world, from Iran’s accelerated nuclear program to North Korea’s processing of plutonium for a half-dozen nuclear weapons (compared with zero during the Clinton presidency).

As my colleague David Sanger documents in his superb new book, “The Inheritance”: “We pursued a path that has left us less admired by our allies, less feared by our enemies, and less capable of convincing the rest of the world that our economic and political model is worthy of emulation.”