Deja Vu All Over Again

Lots of people have been commenting on the Inaugural Address. There was one aspect of it which just bugged me, but which also helped me to put my finger on what has to be done over the next four years. The President did the usual conciliation bit, about healing divisions:

Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom. We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes - and I will strive in good faith to heal them.

However, he also went right into the same old methodology, where he makes stuff up, about the people who disagree with him:

Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty - though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals.

The man isn't even a half hour into his second term, and he ignores the fact that his critics disagree with his methods, not with America's goals of peace and freedom around the world. The new term is starting with the same old attacks and distortions, which characterized the last one.

I have no brilliant insight as to how to do this, but somehow we have to get away from the notion that war is the first choice to solve these problems.