The President’s Second Inaugural cheered his political allies and angered his foes. Those expecting a Lincoln-like second inaugural (“with malice toward none” ) continue to express their disappointment. They need to get over themselves. There is no requirement that winners be gracious in sports, politics or life. The Inauguration was the President’s endzone dance. He won and if he wants to celebrate his victory by taunting his opponents, that his prerogative.
Tone aside, there was something noticeably absent from the President’s remarks. Just a day before he privately took the oath of office, Algerian forces brought an end to a terrorist seizure of a gas field. The death toll so far is at 66, including 37 civilian workers, at least three of whom are Americans.
The timing of these grisly events was unfortunate, concluding as they did so close to the President’s big celebration. An expression of remorse would have been ill-suited to the script White House speechwriters had prepared. Besides, these are corpses, after all, some reportedly charred beyond recognition. There’s plenty of time to bury them once their bodies have all been recovered and transported home. No need to strike a discordant note of grief in an otherwise triumphant address.
There’s also the fact that we know so little about the dead or their murderers. The attack once again took our leaders by surprise and nearly a week after the assault was launched, they seem still to be in the dark as to its most basic details. No need to embarrass ourselves as we did after 4 Americans were killed in Benghazi, announcing that their deaths sprang from an imaginary protest against a Youtube video outside our consulate. Better to say too little than to spend months explaining how you got it so wrong.
Moreover, an expression of condolence to the families of the dead would have been at odds with the President’s declaration that “enduring security and lasting peace” do not require “perpetual war.” It would have been awkward to acknowledge that his withdrawal from the wars begun by his predecessor seems to have produced neither security nor peace. Nor have negotiations with our enemies “durably lift[ed] suspicion and fear,” despite the President’s expressed convictions. If you are an American civilian living in Africa, Asia or other troubled realms, your suspicions and fears are likely more acute after Benghazi and Algeria.
That is why a sentence or two – perhaps even a phrase – expressing sympathy for Americans who have died far from the battlefields of Afghanistan over the past several months might have been apt. Honoring the dead would at least tell the living that we are aware of their peril, even if we don’t intend to do much to relieve it.
The era of perpetual war may be over. But surely there is some middle ground between intervention and indifference.
