Inaugural Recap

With wind chills on Capitol Hill in the teens, it wasn't easy to peck out a post on my Blackberry this morning, so here's a catch-up. The event has been reported to a fare-thee-well, so just a few personal observations onsite.

The lines to enter the Capitol grounds moved along well despite a lack of official or volunteer marshals. Once inside security, as we walked to our seats, the air bore the slighty sweet, slightly manure-like smell of wood chips underfoot.

Under a dappled blue/grey sky, with a mass of humanity behind us as far as the eye can see, the voice of God announced, "The President-Elect of the United States, Barack H. Obama." As he strode through the portal and shook the hands of dignitaries on the way to his seat, the crowd erupted in chants of "Obama, Obama."

It was a bit distressing - but, with such an immense crowd, not surprising - that the introduction of the outgoing President drew a few boos and a few round of "Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye."

During Rick Warren's invocation and other speeches, someone standing in one of the palladian windows behind the podium kept wiping off condensation so that those tucked in a warm room behind the podium could have a good look.

The music: Aretha Franklin sang "America" (introduced by Senator Feinstein as "My Country 'Tis of Thee"). She couldn't hit the high notes of "let freedom ring" and she's lost a lot of vocal strength, but she beautifully occupied the role of icon. The "Air" by John Williams, based on an Aaron Copland theme and performed by a quartet that included Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, was the single most moving element of the entire ceremony.

Our first impression of the President's inaugural address was "good.". You can only write your Ninth Symphony once, and expectations were high. But Obama plainly wanted to move on from the platitudinous to the practical, immediately reminding us of the hard slog ahead as we look to restore our economy, calling for seriousness and unity of purpose, speaking of peace and war with compassion and strength - and setting the table for what promises to be a busy and challenging agenda.

After his remarks, thousands of us began a show shuffle away from the seating area, mayors and campaign donors and a lot of just plain folks. As we left the secure zone, several guys with paper money in their hands were offering "$20 for your Obama stub" - next stop, eBay. We saw that the streets approaching Capitol Hill were almost covered with shredded newspapers - and it dawned on us that Obama fans who had arrived in the middle of the night had stuffed these in their clothing to keep warm.

We then dropped by a couple of receptions along the Inaugural parade route. At our second stop, a law firm office on the top floor of the Market Square building at 7th and Pennsylvania, we watched as the First Couple stepped out of their tank-like limousine to walk the rest of the parade group, thrilling the spectators.

We continued our long, happy, exhausted walk back to our hotel, looked at each other, and decided to pass on a third night of partying. We'll satisfy ourselves watching ball coverage on CNN. David Gergen just made a statement that sums up our sentiments: "People wait hours to get into these things - and then they're standing there and they ask themselves, 'what the hell are we doing here'?"

The Inauguration was a wonderful day that showed off America at its best. Let's pray that this sense of unity continues. It's essential to the revival of our economy, our global standing and our greatness as a nation.