The limits of Barack Obama's fancy words

According to one of his Republican antagonists, US President Barack Obama's inaugural address this week was one of the finest in recent US history.

But even the finest rhetoric does not easily translate into action, and both the US and the world are pretty much as grubby as when Obama first wooed them with his flights of fancy words four years ago.

For America's international role, Obama risks being distracted by domestic dogfights. For Asia, especially for anyone concerned about relations with a rising China, it is potentially bad news that the US seems to have little space for serious consideration of intricate issues involving complicated questions of balance between countries.

Obama has a heaped plateful of domestic problems, starting with the unresolved debt and deficit issues and a supposedly recovering weak economy. Unemployment of 7.8 per cent is one indicator of a country with big problems.

A blog post circulating on the internet listed "75 economic numbers from 2012 that are almost too crazy to believe", which show a sick, not merely an unequal, society: among them, 48 per cent of Americans and 57 per cent of all children are either "low income" or living in poverty; a million schoolchildren are homeless; four major US banks each have US$40 trillion exposure to derivatives; only 24.6 per cent of jobs are considered "good jobs".

Obama is presumably searching for his place in history in announcing new crusades for tougher gun controls, for action on climate change and for gay rights. To non-Americans, these campaigns might look reasonable or even sensible, but in the US each has attracted opposition ranging from bloody-minded to crazy.

In foreign policy, the US faces myriad flashpoints, all sharing the same feature that a single small change could produce kaleidoscopically large repercussions.