Leach '64 panel looks to road ahead

Leach, a Wilson School professor and Republican who represented Iowa in the U.S. Congress for 30 years before losing re-election in 2006, was a member of a faculty panel that discussed its expectations for the inauguration Tuesday. Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 introduced the panel, which included Leach, Wilson School associate dean Nolan McCarty and politics professor Brandice Canes-Wrone.

“Inaugurals are generally somber events,” Leach said before the ceremony began. “This one is uplifting. It might even be considered heroic.”

McCarty began the discussion by declaring that, “in historical terms, this inauguration does indeed transcend all others.”

“Regardless of the principles, ideologies and policies that divide us as Americans,” he continued, “it is a day that we Americans place our trust in a new president.”

Canes-Wrone followed McCarty, relying heavily on statistics to support her point that Americans have become increasingly open-minded. She cited the steadily increasing percentages of the population that have said they would vote for a black, female, Jewish or atheist president since the 1930s, when broad surveys of public opinion first became available.

“We have been willing to admit our errors and make an attempt to right them,” Canes-Wrone added. “Our nation continues to make real progress in offering equal opportunities to all citizens.”

Leach commented on the outgoing Bush administration and its perceived failures.

“The engine of the state has been ideologically derailed by the classic sins: hubris and greed compounded by ambition,” he said. “The incoming administration is determined to get America back on track.”

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Leach also spoke of the challenges facing American society and the new administration.

“For the first time in our history, there is a sense that we have erred,” he said. “The right prescriptions have not been applied to our economy, and the right proscriptions have not been advanced in our foreign policy.”

A theme Leach brought up repeatedly was the laundry list of issues the new administration will have to tackle. “Seldom, perhaps never, at least since Lincoln, has a president been presented upon taking office with a portfolio of more daunting challenges,” he said.

Still, Leach expressed confidence in Obama’s ability to rise to the task.

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“The American people voted last November for a new generation of leadership,” he said. “Now, on this remarkable day of transition, the American melting pot is bubbling with new ideas and renewed energy.”

Leach ended his remarks on a note of warning. “We all have a vested interest in helping ensure that his administration succeeds,” he said. “We cannot allow it to fail.”

Leach added that, overall, Obama “really reflected a lot of himself in his speech, and he spoke to broad themes of togetherness, tapped into historical roots and made it clear that we’re going to change current policies but based upon past values.”

Slaughter ranked the inaugural address as on par with John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address in January 1961.

“I think it was a terrific speech,” she said. “It hit all the notes he needed to hit, both the sense of challenge but also of historic purpose and the ability to pull together as a nation. His call to service was in a different language than Kennedy’s, but I think just as effective.”