Preview of the Second Term?

There's an eloquent analysis of President Obama's eloquent second inaugural address, and, of course, it's by Mr. Pierce. Here's a small teaser:

At the very least, the Romney campaign made very obvious, whether it knew the camera was rolling or not, what its vision for the country was. But, then, the nature of the opposition to his re-election forced him, in one way or the other, to defend every progressive political accomplishment back to the enactment of the child labor laws, and that is not entirely an exaggeration, either. I wondered if, finally, he saw the nature of the opposition for what it truly was — not merely obstructionist toward what he was trying to accomplish, but also desirous of using the president's good intentions to push their own retrograde agenda. Pushing back against that philosophy, day after endless day, I thought, had to work to clarify and to give perceptible form to what he was trying to do with his own presidency. I wondered about that all year.

I do not wonder any more.

It's well worth reading.

In some way, parts of the address read better after the fact than the spoken version. (Surprising, in a way, for someone as gifted a speaker as Obama.) Perhaps it was just seeing the words, being able to see the linkages and the power behind them, and gleaning what they were conveying about Obama's vision of the next four years -- all of which made the speech grow somewhat more remarkable in reflection.

Now for the tough work. Now for the follow-through!