It was day a some thought would never come, but history was made when Barack Obama was sworn in as US President. Charles Laffiteau gives an eyewitness account of the inauguration in Washington DC
First things first, a confession. I must admit to having wondered how the experience of seeing President Obama take the reins of power in Washington DC last week could possibly equal what I witnessed in Denver, Colorado less than five months earlier, when Obama was nominated as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. But boy oh boy, was I ever wrong.
Let’s just say that I made the mistake of underestimating the power of being one of two million witnesses to history, as opposed to being one in a crowd of only around 90,000. In my defence, I had been truly awestruck in Denver, looking up from my vantage point on the floor of the Democratic convention at the thousands of people jammed into every corner and seat at Mile High Stadium. It was the largest crowd to have ever witnessed a US Presidential candidate deliver a nomination acceptance speech.
I had also never before been to a presidential inauguration or a political gathering of any kind numbering more than a few hundred thousand people. Of course, the only other inauguration I have ever been invited to was President Reagan’s in 1981, which drew a crowd of just half a million people. Well, if you think the sight of 500,000 spectators is awe-inspiring, how does one even begin to describe what it’s like to turn around from your spot on Capitol Hill and look at a crowd estimated to be almost two million strong?
However, my journey to President Obama’s inauguration had more than a few moments of tension prior to my arrival on the lawn of the US Capitol building. In fact, less than an hour before he took his oath of office, I was still standing in a packed queue of several thousand people at one of the four entry gates. But that was only the last of my many anxious moments, which had actually begun several hours earlier.
I had departed my friend’s home in Arlington, Virginia some three hours before, at 8am, so that I could catch the Metro subway train for the normally 15-minute trip into the city, to a stop less than a half-hour walk from the entry gate for ticket holders. I had been told that these entry gates would open at 9am, so I figured I had allowed myself plenty of time to get there and grab a good viewing spot.
Unfortunately, I had not accounted for the fact that the trains into the city would be so jammed with passengers who had gotten on at earlier stops that there would be no room left for people to get on at Pentagon City, where I found myself stranded.
Having some experience riding the rails, I knew that if the trains coming into Pentagon City were already full at 8am, this would remain the case for at least the next couple of hours. So I decided to leave the queue for the train to the city in favour of a seat on the virtually empty train heading the other way. I knew that while this detour would cost me some precious minutes, I would also be guaranteed a spot on the train when it turned around and started back into the city.
When the outbound train stopped at Reagan International Airport, I took a chance by hopping off and waiting for the next inbound train, thinking maybe I could save a bit of time this way. As it turned out, I was lucky enough to just squeeze onto the next train into DC and arrived at my original planned destination just before 9am. I then walked briskly to the entry point for my gate, only to find a large queue of ticket holders waiting to be let through to the gate on the next street.
My tension didn’t evaporate until 11:15am, when I was finally allowed to go through the gate and the omnipresent metal detectors. I sprinted to a spot between two portable loos just behind the people seated on the Capitol lawn and wedged myself into the small opening between them. Granted, this wasn’t the best smelling spot on the Capitol grounds, but it gave me an unobstructed view of President Obama’s entire inauguration ceremony.
The only moment of disappointment on this historic day came shortly after I got to my viewing spot. As President Bush and his wife Laura were introduced shortly before 11:30am, many in the crowd around me booed lustily. While I have been one of the Bush administration’s harshest critics over the last six years, I thought this public display of disrespect towards the outgoing president and his wife was both uncalled for and in poor taste.
But the sour mood among some of my fellow spectators quickly disappeared when President Obama, his wife Michelle and their family were introduced to a rousing cheer as they joined President Bush and former US Presidents Clinton, Bush Sr and Carter on the inaugural platform. It was at this point that I turned around and for the first time looked at the two million people standing behind me. This vast crowd stretched as far as my eyes could see down the National Mall, past the Washington Monument and all the way to the Lincoln Memorial some two miles away. The sight of this gave me goose-bumps, and a warm feeling about what the future holds.
In the spirit of a new era of bipartisan politics, President Obama picked a prominent social conservative minister, Rick Warren, to deliver the inaugural invocation, a choice that infuriated many progressive Democrats. This sentiment was underscored when I heard a very distinct murmur of dissatisfaction rippling through the crowd around me when Warren was first introduced. But his invocation was actually quite soothing and non-partisan for the most part. While it was a mistake that Warren chose to lead the crowd in saying the Lord’s Prayer (which is so particularly Christian), I thought the invocation was appropriately focused on the need for national unity.
Chief Justice John Roberts then proceeded to screw up administering the oath of office such that he and now-President Obama had to repeat it in a private ceremony a day later in order to ensure the constitutionality of the process. But Obama was unflustered by this mistake, delivering his 18-minute inaugural address without so much as a single hitch.
I would characterise it as a very sober and serious speech, and yet one that still included a large measure of determination and hope regarding America’s future. Although he used it to repudiate many of the policies of President Bush, he was also very careful and made sure that he never personally attacked him in the process.
“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real,” he said. “They are serious, and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: they will be met.”
He also acknowledged those who doubt we can overcome these challenges, saying: “There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.”
President Obama also noted that the rest of the world was hopefully watching and looking to America to lead it through the current economic crisis, as well as to help resolve some of the world’s numerous ethnic and religious conflicts when he said “We are ready to lead again.”
He repudiated the Bush administration’s use of torture and its curtailment of civil liberties by saying that this was a “false choice between our safety and our ideals”, but also warned the enemies of the United States that “our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”
The inauguration ceremony ended with a wonderful – and somewhat humorous – benediction delivered by the Reverend Joseph Lowery, a civil rights veteran and colleague of Dr Martin Luther King. He acknowledged America’s racial divisions and the need for a continuation of progress in addressing them.
“We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back,” he said, “when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead man, and when white will embrace what is right.”
What else can you say to this closing line from Rev Lowery on a most remarkable day but “Amen.” n
Charles Laffiteau is a lifelong US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is currently pursuing a PhD research programme in Environmental Studies at Dublin City University
