The Very First Words From President Bill Clinton : A bubbly, optimistic inauguration in Washington

Let’s dispose of the new President’s inaugural speech quickly. As a speech, it wasn’t one of the all-time great addresses. None of the lines is likely to claim permanent residence in history’s memory. No ringing Reagan- or Kennedy-esque declarations are now reverberating around the world. Yes, America has a new President. Perhaps he will prove to be one of the great ones. For if it was not the most scintillating address, it was certainly a moving day of inauguration--full of promise and hope.

AT STAKE: The speeches a President gives are vital to the success of an administration. The failure to communicate can severely hobble a presidency. Consider that after the smashing 1988 GOP acceptance speech in New Orleans, written by the gifted Peggy Noonan, President Bush’s speech prose basically went downhill. Perhaps history will decide that Bush was a better President than he was able to persuade people he was, because--his evident decency notwithstanding--he was rarely that convincing whenever he took to the First Pulpit to speak to the nation.

In that respect, the presidency of Ronald Reagan was the standard by which all who succeed him can measure themselves. His speeches conveyed clear, if at times overly simplistic, perspectives on the major policy issues of the day. They were understandable even when one didn’t agree with them; the delivery was generally warm as well as crisp, and when he was finished with the speech, the sense of direction was usually very clear.

THE PRESIDENTIAL DELIVERY: In that sense the new President’s delivery Wednesday was excellent. He spoke with conviction, energy and happy confidence. The words seemed almost wholly his own--and thus, to that extent, overly familiar. But for all its prosaic qualities, the surprisingly but happily short inaugural speech seemed pure Clinton. Exuberant. Willing. Optimistic. Knowledgeable.

These are qualities that could serve the President well in the months ahead. His talk of the “mystery of American renewal” and the need to “reinvent America” came right from the campaign. And then the wonderful, determined, hard-jaw Clintonesque optimism: “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” And the relentless gong of change: “We have heard the trumpets, we have changed the guard . . . we must answer the call.”

THE CLINTON IMAGES: But if Wednesday’s words about the new presidency did little more than fill the bill, the visual images in some ways were worth more than the proverbial thousand well-chosen words.

Consider the image of the young President, filled with energy, even longing, for the challenge before him--a bracing, even inspiring image. Or the image of Clinton and the new First Lady waving to bystanders along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route with a confident, almost chirpy, stroll toward the White House that will be their hard-won home for at least the four years to come.

There you had it: After decades of dreaming--the other day he happily admitted that he had thought of becoming President even as a kid--and after years of political planning and many months of grueling campaigning, William Jefferson Clinton had reached, for an American politician, the absolute pinnacle.

He had climbed his mountain.

And now he is the President; the campaign is ancient history. Very soon the world--friend and foe alike--will begin to take his measure. Will he be equal to the challenge? Will he be one of the great presidents? That is always the question that overhangs the beginning of every new presidency.

Let every American, at this time of national turmoil and economic recession, hope--and where appropriate pray--that William Jefferson Clinton proves to have within himself the very best that is in us all as a people, and as a nation. America wants a successful presidency.