Liberal pundits and Republican congressmen agree: Barack Obama’s second inaugural was the most liberal speech of his presidency. They may be right. But just what kind of liberalism is this?

The speech’s claim to liberalism rests on at least three grounds. First, Obama spoke with unusual urgency about the threat of climate change — a pleasant surprise given his recent reticence on the topic. Second, he argued for a role for government in a mixed economy, including the need not to scrap Social Security or Medicare (though he also praised “initiative and enterprise,” and reiterated his call for “hard choices” to attack the deficit). And third, the president celebrated the role of collective action and organizing in American history, including by militant queer activists – making Obama’s the first inaugural address to acknowledge the existence of gay people.

Obama called the declaration “that all of us are created equal” the “star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall . . . ” That’s not what you would have heard in a Mitt Romney Inaugural Address (though it’s not hard to imagine Romney, with a different emphasis, also touting a mixed economy and the need to secure entitlements for future generations).