Tom Friedman Offers A Nice Early Take on Obama's Inaugural Address

I thought Tom Friedman did a very good job this morning at capturing the moment.  An excerpt from his column, Radical In The White House: 

George W. Bush completely squandered his post-9/11 moment to summon the country to a dramatic new rebuilding at home. This has left us in some very deep holes. These holes - and the broad awareness that we are at the bottom of them - is what makes this a radical moment, calling for radical departures from business as usual, led by Washington.

That is why this voter is hoping Obama will swing for the fences. But he also has to remember to run the bases. George Bush swung for some fences, but he often failed at the most basic element of leadership - competent management and follow-through.

President Obama will have to decide just how many fences he can swing for at one time: grand bargains on entitlement and immigration reform? A national health care system? A new clean-energy infrastructure? The nationalization and repair of our banking system? Will it be all or one? Some now and some later? It is too soon to say.

But I do know this: while a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, so too is a great politician, with a natural gift for oratory, a rare knack for bringing people together, and a nation, particularly its youth, ready to be summoned and to serve.

So, in sum, while it is impossible to exaggerate what a radical departure it is from our past that we have inaugurated a black man as president, it is equally impossible to exaggerate how much our future depends on a radical departure from our present. As Obama himself declared from the Capitol steps: "Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed."

We need to get back to work on our country and our planet in wholly new ways. The hour is late, the project couldn't be harder, the stakes couldn't be higher, the payoff couldn't be greater.

If you have other columns, post or essays you've found you think we should post and promote on the our blog here please send them to Sam DuPont at sdupont@ndn.org.  More soon....