Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Balkinization

Legal Commentary

: Balkinization

Obama as Andrew Jackson

By Jack M. Balkin

Andrew Jackson?s inauguration in 1829 turned into a drunken revelry. 20,000 admirers stormed the White House, destroying furniture and carpets in a desperate effort to greet the new President. Order was restored only when an intrepid member of Jackson?s coterie arranged for free whisky on the White House lawn. Traditional Washingtonians were horrified by what they saw. Margaret Bayard Smith, a prominent Washington socialite, complained that "the Majesty of the People had disappeared," replaced by "a rabble, a mob, of boys, negros, women, children, scrambling, fighting, romping." Looking at the debris and carnage, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts concluded that the old order was dead. "The reign of King Mob," Story wrote, "seemed triumphant." Webster correctly observed at Jackson?s inaugural that the President?s supporters thought "that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger."

The Whig in me has similar fears about the Obama inauguration. On the one hand, I suspect we are unlikely to witness drunken revelers ruining the White House, although the clean-up is likely to be expensive. Moreover, Obama is many ways is about as much of a Whig as one can hope for in turn of the twenty-first century politics. On the other hand, the inauguration has been more about celebrity than statesmanship. Pictures of Obama that I saw yesterday cycling through Georgetown seemed more appropriate for Mao?s China than a constitutional democracy. Increasingly, a cult of personality, Obama as Abraham Lincoln, seems triumphant. Perhaps a day of populist revelry is the price progressives must pay for living in a constitutional democracy, but the signs are worrisome. The Republicans for the last forty years have proven more adept at providing people with symbols than effective policy. We should remember tomorrow that words, even when delivered by photogenic hunks neither feed the hungry nor bring peace to the Middle East. The danger we need rescuing from is not simply the politics of George Bush, but a media fostered politics of celebrity. This calls for a political culture that cares less about the pageantry of politics than the substance. This week is not a good start to that project.

Full post as published by Balkinization on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).