Obama savours day of joy

Twice, at least, President Barack Obama appeared to breathe in the mile or so of colour and joy that stretched out from his perch on the Capitol Building way off to the Washington Monument.

Twice his head leaned slightly backwards, his eyes squinted, his smile satisfied, a look that was at once arrogant and humbled.

And why wouldn’t he take those split seconds between formalities to soak up, for the final time, the adoration of the masses?

Beyoncé and Katy Perry won’t be around when his second four-year term descends into the minutiae of deficits and guns.

This was a speech of inclusivity that gave equal importance to the free market he hopes will reinvigorate the “streets of Detroit” and the gun control he prays will bring some measure of peace to the “quiet lanes of Newtown”.

Numbers and intensity may have been down compared to 2009, but as Xochela James, an Obama supporter from Richmond, Virginia, put it to the Irish Examiner, the “pride is still there” and so was the emotion.

America is no longer the world power that Obama’s speech tried to claim.

But he was well within his rights to look out over those crowds and beyond to the Lincoln Memorial and savour where they are now in spite of all that’s gone before.