home > by publication type > op-eds > Americans' Outsized Expectations for Obama Face Long Odds
Email
| Author: | Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow |
|---|
January 20, 2009
Vancouver Sun
The economic stimulus package has arrived early in Washington. In preparation for today's inauguration of Barack Obama, more than 5,000 portable toilets have been trucked into downtown D.C.
Crews have built bleachers and set out thousands of chairs for the events, with the best ones reserved for the $50,000-a-seat donors. Washington's police force will temporarily double to 8,000 and another 12,000 military troops will help with security. Hotel rooms have tripled their normal rates, and people are renting out their houses for thousands of dollars for a few days.
Americans have always had outsized expectations for their presidents, but they have never seen anything like this. Organizers predict that today's swearing-in and the parade that follows from the Capitol Building to the White House will draw more than two million visitors to Washington, with some estimates running as high as five million. Even the low number would be nearly twice the record crowd set for Lyndon Johnson's inauguration in 1965.
The historic inauguration of the country's first African-American president explains part of the excitement. But most of it reflects a desperate hope that, after many years of false promises, Obama really will bring a change to Washington. For more than two decades, the reigning ideology in the American capital has been that government is the problem, not the solution.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.