The very word cuts both ways–meaning true trust and also deception, as in “confidence game.” But the added layer of irony for Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address is that, in an environment of potential panic, confidence is a key to getting America back on track.
Whatever he says after taking the oath today will in itself be as crucial, as real in its impact, as the stimulus bills, bailouts and fiscal maneuvering to come.
The new President knows that. With his uncanny emotional intelligence, Obama understands that he will be treading many lines today–between rhetoric and reality, between offering hope and asking for sacrifice, between creating uplift and being down to earth, between Martin Luther King‘s lofty dreams and his “fierce urgency of now.”