Guest Commentary: Chris Sagers on the inaugural address

February 14, 2013

I was trying to fix a fireplace mantle, of all things, and was hardly paying attention on that sunny, brisk January day in Cleveland as my six-year-old watched the President’s second inauguration in our living room. It’s hardly that I didn’t care. I volunteered for both of the President’s campaigns and have given him more money than I could ever have imagined. I consider myself his ardent supporter. But it’s just gotten hard to listen to any politician talk about anything in this divided and discouraging time, when policy aspirations have all come to seem so hopeless. Between loud whacks of a hammer, though, this middle-aged do-it-yourself-er caught the following snippet toward the beginning of the President’s remarks: