oneworldtalk

We consider ours a singular age of individual psychology and self-awareness. Isn't it strange, then, that recent presidents have had nothing either modest or insightful to say about themselves in their first inaugural addresses, while the earliest presidents in their earliest moments spoke openly of their failings, limitations and deficiencies?

The first inaugural address - George Washington in New York in 1789 - began with an apology. In a fashion inconceivable in a country no longer known for acknowledging faults, he apologised to Congress for his unworthiness, referring to himself as "one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies".

This was the "father of the country", who had seen the American Revolution through to victory, yet began his presidency by raising doubts about himself.

Twelve years later, Thomas Jefferson took up similar themes from the unfinished Capitol building in Washington. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence professed "a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire".

James Madison acknowledged his "deficiencies" in 1809, and eight years later, so did James Monroe.

How curious and archaic such sentiments seem today, highlighting humility and denigrating ability.

It's hard to imagine a recent president saying, as Jefferson did of the task ahead,"I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking". Today, all this would stink of weakness and so be taboo. By the time John F. Kennedy came along, there was no more talk of shrinking from contemplation. "In the long history of the world," he said, "only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it."

Recent presidents have outlined grand ambitions, celebrating strength, threatening enemies and hitting the call notes of an ever more imperial presidency. Underneath the often dull words of modern inaugurals lies a distinct hubris, an emphasis on the limitlessness of American power.

At his second inauguration, George Bush pledged nothing less than to bring "freedom" to the whole planet. He identified this as "the calling of our time . . . with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

Only one recent president offered a shred of modesty. Jimmy Carter's 1977 address, coming after Watergate and the disaster of Vietnam, called Americans to "a new spirit," which was to include a recognition of "our recent mistakes" and a realisation that "even our great nation has its recognised limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all problems."

Only Carter, of all modern presidents, picked up on the theme of personal limits. "Your strength can compensate for my weakness, and your wisdom can help to minimise my mistakes." It didn't play well. After only one term, Carter was thumped by Ronald Reagan, a man who saw no limits to America.

Washington and Jefferson had an advantage: the country they were to lead was still an experiment its creators knew could go wrong.

The earliest presidents had the modesty of uncertain beginnings to guide them. They were called on to lead a new nation that was still militarily weak, whose capital, only 13 years after Jefferson doubted himself in public, would be sacked and burnt by British troops. They were under oath to a country whose existence, recently wrested from the great imperial power of its day, was still a kind of fragile miracle.

We have just lived through a commander-in-chief presidency whose oppressive power and overwhelming hubris would undoubtedly have left those early presidents in shock, if not revolt.

These were, after all, men wary of armies and military power, who had sacrificed the very idea of executive strength to a tripartite form of government that would, they hoped, have the advantages of resiliency and responsibility. They recognised limits.

Let's hope that on Tuesday, in his first moments, Barack Obama will do the same and sound a lot more like the president of these imperilled United States - and a lot less like the autocrat of the planet.

- Los Angeles Times