Four score and seven hours ago, Obama bought forth on this nation a new Administration, conceived in integrity, and the realisation of the Dream that all men are created equal...Hey, this prose stuff is actually quite fun, and if you get the opening right, then hopefully friends will continue to read on. I'm a few hours away from catching a train out of Washington DC to New York, and have finally figured out that if I quickly throw up a 'blog' with a few photos and impressions, then my thumb will get a rest, as my text replies to enquiries never quite encapsulate the mood.
A few of you know that I booked this trip pretty well as soon as the result was known back in the early hours of November 5th - it seems so long ago since BL was cutting out our photocopied Obama 'Hope' buttons so our small gathering could sit around the telly to watch the election up in the comfort of the Langdale loun
ge, keeping track of Red and Blue States on the whiteboard above the screen.
It wasn't a 'slam dunk' decision to be in the crowd on Inauguration Day; Micro-economics mirror the present global macro-economic situation - especially as I'm at the front end of a self-imposed study sabbatical - so before clicking the 'make reservation' button to buy the ticket, I did carry out a somewhat rudimentary mental cost-benefit analysis. As it turns out, I grossly under-estimated the profound impact of literally standing-in-history has had, on all sorts of levels.
(enough to make me Kenny feel as if he was in 'Phoo Heaven') I didn't want to either forgo my place in the multi-hour queue, or surrender whatever hard-fought square-inches of ground eventually captured. 
Exited at L'Enfant Plaza, I just followed the ever increasing mob to the holding area to the south of the mall at 7th St SW.
I thought we would be held off the Mall until 7 AM, but I must have misread the advice on one of the numerous Information websites, as the gates opened at 4:30, and we all just flooded into the open space, and by 4:45 I was on my 'patch', about twenty feet back from the barrier for the 'common people', as all space between 4th St and the U.S. Capital were for ticketed folks only, and I was absolutely wrapped with my location.
So, just over seven hours to fill in. Sunrise was pretty amazing, and the constant shivering and lifting of one foot after the other (thinking that if the foot wasn't on the ground, then perhaps it wouldn't be sssoooo cold) seemed to fill in the time just nicely, and listening the constant political banter on C-SPAN radio, via my much-loved portable tranny, helps as well.
The Powers-to-Be put a lot of effort in pre-recording a lot of footage of the various associated preceding events, and transmitting the clips for the first time on the large screens erected on the Mall to keep the massed amused. The pre-recorded stuff was interceded with the live feed, and Obama's departure from Blair House for Church, his arrival for coffee at the White House, and his departure for the famous limo ride to the Capital were all greeted with huge deafening cheers - likewise, whenever his soon-to-be predecessor consume the screen, the coliseum-like crowd roared with contempt.
Check out these two short videos, one of the President-elect's arrival on the dais, and the second of the administration of the Oath.
The fluffing of the Oath: Owing to the fact that the screen I was watching was some distance in front of me, and the sound I was listening to was provided by speakers attached to a much closer screen just behind me, the setup meant for a slightly confusing experience as it was, but after such a ground breaking two year campaign of No-Drama Obama, where 'the message' was never de-railed, it was like watching a train crash as the Oath was being administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. Again, because of the various speeds of light and sound, I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. Initially it sounded as if either Obama interrupted Roberts, or Roberts didn't pause for Obama. Even though I've geekedly watched JFK and other's been sworn in countless number of times (isn't You-Tube great) I couldn't remember if there was a pause after the name). As it turned out, in Barack's first moment of crisis he remained calm, and it was Roberts who blabbered on...
The first - and hopefully the only - lie of the Obama Administration: I was just getting over the initial pondering if, in the years to come, the constitutional standing of the Obama era will be questioned because of an un-intentionally misplaced 'faithfully' (and Conspiracy Theorists will advocate he was nobbled at the final hurdle by the Judiciary Branch) when I heard the first mis-truth of the current Administration, less than a minute into the Inaugural Speech... I turned to Toby Zeigler and said "that's wrong"; imagine my smugness when he hadn't picked it up, and didn't know that only 43 people have ever taken the Presidential Oath of Office. I've got several tins of 'Obama Peppermints', com
plete with Shepard Fairey's iconic image on the lid, to post to the first ten correct emailed explanations of the 43 v 44 fact. (four down, six to go, as of 26th Jan.)
Personal Safety: I've spent the last week in Washington DC, and it's 18 years since my first visit to this city. In 1991 I distinctly remember being very conscious that at the time, Washington DC was the 'Murder Capital' of the United States and although I did realise that nearly all of that crime was related to the outer suburb gang & drug scene, I do remember being quite prudent in always carrying my camera in a scruffy day-bag, wallet out of sight, and didn't think that walking the Mall late at night was a good idea. This week is so totally different. There has been nothing but 'good will' on the buses, in the street, and Civility reigns supreme. When, on the 21st, I heard on the radio the seemingly incredulous claim that the sum total of Inaugural Ceremony related arrests was ZERO, my default reaction was that it was true! Check out ABC News, and my favourite line "And no one left wearing bracelets." appears on The Daily News blogsite.
Why be there? I was too young to remember seeing Neil Armstrong take that small step, but even if I was older, I would have only seen it like everyone else, on television. I don't know how many times I've seen footage of Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream" speech in the past forty years, but I'm pretty sure I'll see Obama's Inauguration a few times more in the next forty years, and each time I do, I'll (hopefully silently) say to myself "I was there".
And that's just one reason; as I said at the beginning, I profoundly underestimated this experience, on so many levels. Another reason is that I distinctly remember in early 2007 catching a glimpse of one of the very early line-up's on TV of the Democratic candidates; I recognised Hilary and John Edwards, and a few other familiar names like Bill Richardson, but I remember seeing an anonymous (to me) black man at the end of the line-up, and I remember immediately thinking 'No Chance'. I like to think that that initial and instant assessment came more out of ignorance than bigotry, in fact I'm sure it was, because me being here cheering probably proves that I didn't mind being proved wrong.
I'm also delighted with the exception to the conventional wisdom concerning elections, that being that Governments lose Elections, Oppositions don't win them. Although it was very unlikely that it wasn't going to be a Republican's year, John McCain might just have pulled it off - perhaps his best chance was sticking with his first choice for VP, a Pro-Choice Liberman, and the best thing for the McCain campaign would have been if the Republican Party had split, and he would have been able to distance himself to the other side of the Grand Canyon from George W. And on the Democratic side, it was the process of selecting the Drover's Dog that was enthralling, and the rest, they say, is History...
And another reason is probably because I clearly remember where I was when I heard on the car radio that Richard Nixon had resigned. I was nine, and in the white Chrysler Valiant, main street of Mt. Isa, so my early introduction to U.S. politics is one of disgrace. Since then I've experienced the voter reaction to a Presidential Pardon; the defeat of a Nobel Prize Winner at the hands of an actor who I am sure orchestrated the continued imprisonment of hostages to negate the negative impact of their release on his campaign; that same actor's rehearsed line of "Didn't know anything about it" when illegally selling arms; his successor's graffling with the debate questions about how he was personally affected by the economic downturn in the 1992 Debates; then the "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" episode (not that I found that impeachable, but he could have saved himself, and the country, a lot of grief early on; and I think there has been enough said about W. So, for no apparent reason, as I don't live in the States, nor am I a citizen, I find it all very interesting...
