Roamer's column

It has often been said during the past eight weeks - I believe the word was kick-started by General Colin Powell - that America and the world stand on the threshold of "transformational" change; quite what this means on the ground remains to be seen; or does it? Expectations are high, heightened further by an infatuated media that sees no blemish in the new President of the United States. Last Tuesday provided us with a climax - and for all the treacle that crept into CNN and BBC for two, what a climax! - that could have come straight from the reels of a Cecil B. DeMille film.

In his inaugural speech, which many commentators including this one thought flat, some called it mediocre, you will not find phrases the like of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "...the only thing we have to fear is fear"; nor passages of the temper of John F. Kennedy's, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall bear any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foes in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty...and so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country"; nor, going back to the turn of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt's, "Much has been given us and much will rightfully be expected of us. We have duties to them and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the act of its greatness into relations with other nations, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities."

But what Barack Obama did have to say left no doubt that he understood the nature of his watch. The stock market may have plummeted again on inauguration day but he urged a sense of hope and Americans to be optimistic about the future; and he reminded Al-Qaeda, without naming it, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." It is what he left unsaid, or what he subtly hinted at, that will count; and has already started to count.

Americans will give their new man in the White House more than the customary honeymoon period in which to settle down, but Boob number One has already happened. His endorsement of Senator Roland Burris after he had gone along with the Senate majority leader's 'vow' never to accept anybody "tainted" by Governor Rod Blagojevich to take Oblama's seat in the Senate, has been played down. Opponents are wondering whether the new President will show similar pragmatism and include in his rhetoric for change, a "change" in favour of the "life"?

The rump of the media has made a point, many times, about the fearful legacy that has landed in his lap. It may be salutary to remark that apart from the parlous state of the financial system at home and abroad, many of the bits and pieces he has inherited are par for the course in any change from one leader to another.

Much has been made, for example, of the wars Obama inherited in Iraq and Afghanistan (Iraq may be in far better shape than the media allows), but Dwight Eisenhower, to take only one example - there are others - inherited a far larger war in Korea when he took over from Harry Truman and Truman inherited the Second World War from FDR. Kennedy came into the White House calling for the overthrow of Cuba, landed disastrously in the Bay of Pigs and handed over the Vietnam war to Lyndon B. Johnson.

Richard Nixon inherited that (58,000 American soldiers died) and handed over the after-effects of that war and the Watergate scandal to Jimmy Carter, via Gerald Ford, in 1976. General demoralisation was a hefty part of Ronald Reagan's inheritance; another was Iran's hostage take of 58 Americans - for more than 400 days - (dyslexic errors on numbers re Iran and Vietnam, last Sunday, for which apologies) and the well-formed embryo of a deep recession that he turned round by that dreaded Orwellian year, 1984.

But nobody started off as did George W. Bush when he was caught up in an act of terrorism that rocked America and, indeed, the world. The consequences dogged his presidency for eight years.

Point is he faced them. For all the mismanagement post the downfall of Saddam Hussein, the United States was not attacked again during his watch; and Iraq may just turn out to be a success story.

What the new president must be praying for, and if he is not he ought to be so doing, is that he will not be confronted with a 9/11, which - remember? - changed the world forever. If he is not, he has Bush to thank.

Still, again, he takes on his office with political capital infinitely greater than the monetary capital in the American financial system. It will not be long before we witness to the truth that events shape the world.

How well Obama will manage to be on top of them we will see over the next four years.

Can radicalism be pragmatic?

His radical intentions on abortion are well-known. They explain a remarkable 'pro-life Obama ad', which started to run during the inaugural week. Aimed at de-radicalising the president on a matter of life and death, the ad shows an ultrasound of a baby in the womb. Text makes reference to the father, who will "abandon" him; his "single mother will continue to support him... despite the hardships he will endure... he will become the st African American president". Cut to Obama and slogan: "Life. Imagine the Potential."

It remains to be seen whether Obama will tone down his radical, 100 per cent anti-life position (he won't); whether the indications received by Catholic bishops in the US that his administration will "rescind", to use the words of the Archbishop of Detroit, "some of the protections of the unborn" (he will); whether Obama will go the whole hog, as it is suspected he will do, and sign the Freedom of Choice Act; whether he will accept the invitation to address the 36th Annual March for Life (he did not) and "join us pro-lifers as we March for Life for love of God, or our born and pre-born Neighbours, including abortionists, and of our country?" (He did not).

Perhaps closure today may be left to Alveda King and her uncle, Martin Luther King Jr. Delivering the keynote address at a rally held in front of the White House last Friday in honour of the 1,400 African American children aborted every day in the United States, she said:

"Over 50 years ago, my uncle, Martin Luther King Jr., wrote from a Birmingham jail cell that 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere'. Today, there is no greater injustice than that suffered by the 4,000 babies, 1,400 of them black, who die on any given day at the hands of abortionists". Parenthetically, as many babies are killed in the US in one day as American soldiers in Iraq since 2003. "Friday we will stand witness in front of the White House and testify to Obama that while he is living his dreams, those babies will be dying horrible deaths because of the policies he supports.

"I see the pride on African American faces everywhere, pride in the tremendous breakthrough President Obama represents. But I also can close my eyes and see the millions upon millions of young, black, white, red and yellow faces who never had the chance to live, overcome, or witness history. Friday, we will challenge President Obama to see those faces as well."

Obama should listen carefully to King and recall what her uncle wrote in his Paul's Epistle to American Christians in 1968 before he became a martyr for the cause of the black people's civil rights, five years before Roe vs Wade. Had he written it today, he may have chosen to call it Paul's Epistle to Barack Obama.

"I have heard so much about you and what you are doing... What tremendous strides in... scientific and technological development you have made! But America... your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress, your mentality outdistances your morality, your civilisation outshines your culture...

"I find it necessary to remind you of the responsibility laid upon you to represent the ethical principles of Christianity... (when) there are many Christians in America... (whose) great concern is to be accepted socially... You have unconsciously come to believe that what is right is determined by Gallup Polls...

"The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin encourages us to rationalise our actions. Liberalism failed to show that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive way of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalisations". (Vintage Pope Benedict).

But Obama has chosen not to listen. Friday, away from the glare of publicity that surrounded his instruction to close down Guantanamo the previous day, he repealed his predecessor's ban on federal funding for the provision of abortion services outside the US.