This was on my mind during the evening of February 24, when Barack
addressed a joint session of Congress. The event is basically meant to be a
substitute State of the Union for any newly inaugurated president, a chance to
outline the goals for the coming year in a speech televised live during prime time,
delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives with Supreme Court
justices, cabinet members, military generals, and members of Congress present.
It’s also a tradition of high pageantry, in which lawmakers dramatically express
their approval or disapproval of the president’s ideas by either leaping to their feet
in repeat standing ovations or remaining seated and sullen.
I took my seat that evening in the balcony between a fourteen-year-old
who’d written a heartfelt letter to her president and a gracious veteran of the Iraq
war, all of us waiting for my husband to arrive. From where I sat, I could see
most of the chamber below. It was an unusual, bird’s-eye view of our country’s
leaders, an ocean of whiteness and maleness dressed in dark suits. The absence of
diversity was glaring—honestly, it was embarrassing—for a modern, multicultural
country. It was most dramatic among the Republicans. At the time, there were
just seven nonwhite Republicans in Congress—none of them African American
and only one was a woman. Overall, four out of five members of Congress were
male.
A few minutes later, the spectacle began with a thunderclap—the beating of
a gavel and the call of the sergeant at arms. The crowd stood, applauding for
more than five minutes straight as elected leaders jostled for position on the aisles.
At the center of the storm, surrounded by a knot of security agents and a
backward-walking videographer, was Barack, shaking hands and beaming as he
slowly made his way through the room and toward the podium.
I’d observed this ritual many times before on television, during other times
with other presidents. But something about seeing my husband down there amid
the crush made the magnitude of the job and the fact he’d need to win over more
than half of Congress to get anything done suddenly very real.
Barack’s speech that night was detailed and sober-minded, acknowledging
the grim state of the economy, the wars going on, the ongoing threat of terror
attacks, and the anger of many Americans who felt the government’s bailout of
the banks was unfairly helping those responsible for the financial crisis. He was
careful to be realistic but also to sound notes of hope, reminding his listeners of
our resilience as a nation, our ability to rebound after tough times.
I watched from the balcony as Republican members of Congress stayed