Inauguration

I came to DC expecting to be a part of the crowd for every single inaugural festivity I could get to. However, I also wasn’t expecting it to be as cold as it was, and stupidly left my warm hat and gloves back at home, where I guarantee you they’re not being used because according to my parents it was 77 degrees on inauguration day. I resolved to go out to the Mall on Tuesday anyway – after all, it was history in the making.

7:30 a.m. Sanjana knocks on my door and tells me unticketed areas are filling up already and we have to go NOW. Let me think about it… no. I hadn’t even been able to make it through two hours at the inaugural concert on Sunday before I couldn’t feel my toes, and standing in the cold for five hours to not be able to see or hear anything properly didn’t seem worth it.

Instead, I went to Open City, just down the street from our apartments, with my roommate Colleen. I’d been there a couple of times already the previous weekend and noticed they had a big TV and didn’t seem to mind if people came and hung around for hours. It obviously wasn’t the same as going down to the Mall and watching with millions of people, but alternatively I had a great view, could hear properly, and I could even feel my toes!

Watching the crowds of people the CNN commentators kept showing reminded me of one of my favorite things about this election. Early on in the election, even before the debates, people were getting informed and involved in choosing the country’s next leader. Whether or not they, or you, support Obama, his candidacy got a lot of people more involved than they ever had been before, and that’s something I was thrilled to see.

As Obama walked onstage, I was struck by how unlike his usual self he looked. I’d seen him on TV numerous times, and I had tried to catch a glimpse of him at the inaugural concert, and all of those times he had been exactly as people had described him: comfortable with crowds, energetic, and excited for the future. This time, he shook people’s hands walking on stage without seeming to realize what he was doing. He wasn’t talking; he wasn’t connecting with the crowd. Someone later that day made a comment about how he looked like he’d been given Valium before going onstage, and I thought that sounded about right. It seemed to me that it was finally hitting him that he was actually officially the person who had to pull us out of several incredibly complicated situations. Obviously I’m sure he realized this to some degree before, but he seemed completely different this time.

When noon rolled around and Obama had yet to be sworn in, I got a little bit worried and confused. I recalled our last class where Professor Paris had made a comment about what happens if a president wasn’t sworn in by noon. I must have misremembered, because I recalled him saying he didn’t know what would happen because it was written into the constitution that the president must be sworn in by noon on January 20^th. Luckily for me, CNN cleared up my confusion at 12:02 by announcing that regardless of the administration of the oath, Barack Obama became president at noon. This was doubly reassuring after the stumble while administering the oath and all the hype afterwards about whether or not that had any effect on Obama’s presidency. I later read that Bill Clinton was also sworn in after noon on his inauguration, so I’m glad there’s already precedent for this.

And of course, everyone in Open City went crazy once he was sworn in.

One last thing that was on my mind throughout the inaugural festivities: I was struck by the amount of religious language. Some of it I was expecting during the inauguration itself, but a five minute prayer before the inaugural concert? I was very uncomfortable with that, and it seemed unnecessary to me.