Our oath, as President Obama takes his

Barack Obama took the oath of office four years ago, having come to Washington intending to govern as a "post-partisan" president, calling on his experience as a community organizer to work for consensus more than confrontation.

We all know how well that worked out.   While the Democrats were celebrating the inauguration, the Republicans were plotting -- and declaring, as Mitch McConnell did, that their agenda would be to ensure that Obama is a one-term president.

Now we know how well that worked out for them, too.   But the country suffered and Republicans in Congress wound up with a likeability rating somewhere below cockroaches, colonoscopies, and root canals.   It's true.   There was an actual poll that showed that.

President Obama has already given signals that he will be more aggressive and confrontational in his second term, the first major one being his forthright statement that raising the debt ceiling is not a negotiable decision, nor will he use governing tricks to get around it.   He put the onus squarely back where it belongs:  on Congress.   It's their approved spending;  the bills must be paid.    The Republicans gave in.

But they didn't simply cave because the president beat his chest.   The American people spoke loudly and clearly.  So now we must do our part to back up the president.   He will use the "bully pulpit" and we must be an engaged and responsive congregation that shouts, "AMEN."

FDR invited one of the early African-American civil rights leaders to lunch at the White House.   FDR asked him what he could do for his people.   He listened, said he would like to do some of those, but that he needed the people "to make me do it."   That is, to do controversial things, he needed the political power that only the people could give him by demanding them.

President Obama's team is going to make it easy for us.   They are doing something that's never been done before:   using the vast network of contacts they built up for the campaign as a potent force, called Organizing for Action, [it retains the same acronym OfA as Obama for America] to train a new generation of political activists to work at the local level.

It will also be a powerful force to coordinate citizen lobbying.  In the words of the email I got:  "we pull together at the national level to get President Obama's back on passing major legislation, like reducing gun violence or immigration reform. And we'll all work to help transform Washington from the outside while strengthening our economy and creating jobs."

So that's the oath we need to take this morning:  to "get President Obama's back" and to mobilize public opinion to induce Congress to listen to the people instead of the special interests and the money bags.

Ralph