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Obama echoes JFK's Camelot romance Obama echoes JFK's Camelot romance
(9 minutes later)
An unprecedented security operation is under way in Washington ahead of Barack Obama's inauguration as US president. By Nick Bryant BBC News
With estimates of up to a record two million people attending on 20 January, the event has been designated a "national special security event". A debonair 40-something Senator, with a toothy smile and a lofty turn of phrase.
Reports suggest more than 20,000 police officers, troops and security agents are involved. A made-for-television First Family. A fashion-forward First Lady. Generational change at a time of national self-doubt. No wonder the chatter in Washington is of a Black Camelot, with Barack Obama cast as Jack Kennedy, and his wife, Michelle, playing Jackie.
The Obamas are due to check into Blair House, the presidential guest house opposite the White House. Stepping before the press for the first time as President-elect, with his heavily pregnant wife looking on, JFK joked that he looked forward to a new administration and a new baby.
The security operation for Mr Obama's inauguration will see surface-to-air weapons on standby, fighter jets providing air patrols and gunboats patrolling the Potomac River. Barack Obama, of course, produced a similarly memorable flourish by promising his girls a new puppy.
"We understand the historical significance of his election, and we pay attention to that. We look at every single aspect of protection... any factor that you could imagine," Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told French news agency AFP. By strange coincidence, these two young presidents - JFK was 43 when he took the oath of office, while Mr Obama will be four years older - have also inherited a comparable set of challenges.
Homeless In 1960, after eight years of Republican rule, the US economy had flat-lined (though admittedly it was not in its present, doom-laden state), American diplomacy was in urgent need of renewal, and the nation's self-certainty had been rocked by the launch in 1957 of Sputnik 1, a showy piece of galactic one-upmanship which fuelled fears that the Kremlin was winning the Cold War.
As part of the operation, hundreds of homeless people are being encouraged to move out of the security zone to shelters in the city's outer neighbourhoods. Hard-working
"Everyone has to be out of the perimeter by (Monday)," DC Council member Tommy Wells told the Washington Post. Mr Kennedy won that year's close-fought presidential election by promising to "get the country moving again," a phrase that re-appeared in some of Mr Obama's own stump speeches.
Meanwhile, Mr Obama posted a four-minute video message on the internet. He warned those coming to the capital to expect "long lines, a tough time getting around and, most of all, a lot of walking on what could be a very cold winter day". The scale of President-elect Obama's victory was much bigger, but so, too, are the dimensions of the problems: an economy in its most febrile state since the Great Depression and troops engaged in two difficult wars.
INAUGURATION SCHEDULE Sat 17: Obama's train ride from Philadelphia to WashingtonSun 18: Free concert. Beyonce, U2 and Bruce Springsteen starMon 19: Children's evening concertTues 20: Swearing in. Parade led by Obamas. Host of inaugural ballsWed 21: Prayer service class="" href="/1/hi/world/americas/7828467.stm">Tracing Obama's rail journey The Kennedys presented a picture-perfect family So can he emulate the political and reputational success of Kennedy, who was cruising towards a second term when his life came to such an abrupt and violent end, and who continues to be revered by so many Americans?
The Obama family, which spent 10 days staying in a hotel, is also due to take a step closer to the White House. They are checking into Blair House, the historic guest house, across Pennsylvania Avenue from their future residence. In comparing their pre-presidential lives, it is clear that Mr Obama is less travelled than his globe-trotting predecessor, and cannot boast the same brave story of wartime derring-do.
The next First Lady also appears to be thinking about the internal decorations of the White House. He also lacks the legislative experience of JFK, who served 14 years on Capitol Hill compared to his own, rather meagre, four.
Michelle Obama has chosen Los Angeles-based designer Michael Smith to decorate the private quarters of the executive mansion, transition officials told AP news agency. Talent pool
Mr Smith has designed the homes of Hollywood stars Dustin Hoffman, Michelle Pfeiffer and Steven Spielberg, as well as model Cindy Crawford and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. For all that, Mr Obama appears temperamentally well-suited to the demands of the modern presidency and is much more serious-minded and hard-working.
Whereas Jack Kennedy was a "playboy president" - his time in office has been labelled the "thousand days," but is almost as noteworthy for its "thousand nights" - Mr Obama exhibits an almost monastic self-discipline.
The new President-elect can also draw on a vast intellectual blood-bank of advisers and aides.
Kennedy, by contrast, tended to rely on a small coterie of overworked New Frontiersman.
The Kennedy presidency... looked staggeringly beautiful [but] it achieved little of great substance during the first twenty months
His most trusted adviser, Theodore Sorensen, not only drafted the inaugural address, along with all the set-piece speeches, but drafted many of his legislative proposals.
JFK's brother, Bobby, served both as attorney general, de facto national security advisor and round-the-clock presidential counsellor.
Mr Obama can draw from a deeper pool of talent, as he has shown with his high-level appointments.
In considering the Kennedy presidency, there has also been a mistaken tendency to focus solely on its beginning and end - the majesty of the inaugural address and the mayhem of Dallas.
Style over substance
Often forgotten is that prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the Kennedy presidency had failed to meet expectations.
After generating so much hope, expectations are already stretched While at the symbolic level, it looked staggeringly beautiful, it achieved little of great substance during the first 20 months.
Kennedy's early months as president were blighted by the disaster of the Bay of Pigs, the CIA-backed invasion of Cuba, and his lacklustre performance at the first summit meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in June.
It persuaded the Soviet leader to go ahead with the erection of the Berlin Wall.
On the domestic front, Kennedy was bullied on Capitol Hill by crotchety Democratic lawmakers, most of them diehard segregationists from the south, who gutted his legislative programme.
On civil rights, he delayed a swathe of much-needed reforms, out of fear of splitting his party.
In matters of domestic and foreign policy, the first half of the truncated Kennedy presidency offers a playbook of how not to perform the job.
Great expectations
The paradox is that so much romance is attached to the memory of Camelot - a myth-laden term that was coined by Jackie Kennedy in her first interview following her husband's death - that it creates an irksome burden of expectation.
A keen student both of his own mistakes and those of others, Obama will seek to avoid the errors of all his Democratic forebears.
The liberal overreach and over-confidence of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The timidity of Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was hobbled by stagflation and the Iranian hostage crisis.
The chaos of the Clinton White House, especially in its early days when it erred over injudicious appointments and the desire to allow gays to serve openly in the military.
After Barack Obama's performances during the campaign - and perhaps most memorably on the night of his victory - few will be surprised if he matches the eloquence of Kennedy's inaugural address.
But while Kennedy addressed the nation from the east steps of the Capitol, while Mr Obama will appear on the west.
Aptly, it affords him a marvellous view of the Lincoln Memorial at the other end of the Washington Mall, where the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr also spoke of the urgent need for change.
Nick Bryant is the author of The Bystander: John F Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality