Yesterday, under bright skies and before an estimated crowd of more than a million people gathered on the National Mall, Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States. President Obama marked the historic occasion with a somber but stirring inaugural address, telling America that the “challenges we face” — real, many, and serious — “will be met.”After eight years of conservative misrule in a complex and changing world, the United States faces war, recession, the climate crisis, and systems of health care and education that continue to fail too many Americans. Obama declared these ills not just a “consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some” but also “our collective failure to make hard choices.” He repeated a common theme of his candidacy — that good government alone is not sufficient to restore America’s promise. Instead, “the faith and determination of the American people” set the course of the nation. “Starting today,” Obama said, “we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

From The Progress Report