This was a good day. As this blog is a bit of an electronic journal, more personal than public, I though it might be good place to record my experience of it.Most of the school gathered in the gymnasium to watch the inauguration as projected on the walls. I arrived while Aretha Franklin was singing, and immediately found myself moved to tears by the images of the huge crowd on the mall. The images were so reminiscent of another crowd on the same real estate, facing the other direction, listening to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Since the election, countless pundits and commentators have mentioned that no one on the Mall during King's most famous speech could have predicted that this day - a black president - would come so soon. Turns out, one person did:
We sat in a darkened gym, and the history of the moment did not seem lost on the kids - and the presence of the kids strengthened the sense of history for me.
I have always loved the melody of "Simple Gifts," and found John Williams arrangement to be powerful and moving, an appropriate mix of traditional and contemporary, comforting and challenging. Best moment: Yo Yo Ma's smile when he had the melody. Wish I could find a picture of that to put here.
The flub in the oath will go down in history. All I could think was that the right-wing zealots would have a field day with it. I didn't realize at the time that the flub was John Roberts' more than Obama's. Still, one Fox commentator has already speculated that the flub means that Obama isn't really president. I like to see that argument go to the Supreme Court, just to see how John Robert's would rule on it.
On Fox News, Chris Wallace just speculated that President Obama might still legally be regular ol' Barack Obama, because his botched oath doesn't count.
Wallace was referring to the one slip in today's otherwise flawless ceremonies, which came at the most important moment: Chief Justice John Roberts said and President Obama repeated back to him: "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of President of the United States faithfully." The oath's actual line (which is in the Constitution) goes, "I [Barack Hussein Obama] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States."
You can see the video of the oath here:
Over on Fox, Wallace predicted this will go to the courts. Though, presumably, if it makes it to the Supreme Court, John Roberts will rule that he administered a legitimate oath. (Besides, the mistake was Roberts' fault anyway, not that any of this is actually the least bit significant.)
Though I'd ordinarily guess that even this is too silly to take off on the paranoid far-right, these days, who can be sure? As a friend of mine joked, "Maybe the real reason he botched the oath is that he rehearsed it in Arabic."
Reviews seem mixed on Obama's speech. I thought is was tough at a time when toughness is appropriate. I loved that it called us all to task. It could have soared more, but the power was in the moment, the setting, the history, and perhaps expectations are too high. Was there a "nothing to fear" phrase, a "ask not what" moment? Maybe not. But there was a call to return and depend on our highest ideals, and for a "new era of responsibility."
The 1st grade didn't watch the inauguration in the gym, so after we were dismissed I went to look for my youngest son. I was excited and moved about the possibilities of this country, and I wanted to give him a big hug. And I was powerfully reminded of another time that I walked through the lower school halls desperate to give a young son a hug. Seven years ago, on 9/11, I sought out my family members to mark the moment. It was odd that such a different feeling would have such familiarity.
Later in the day, when a senior class came in, one student asked if we could discuss the inaugural poem. Teachable moment. Quick Google search, quick trip to the copier, and within three minutes each kid had a copy of the poem. The kids didn't like it, though they liked it better when it was sitting in front of them. Much was said about it, but the cool revelation, I thought, was that the poem seemed an attempt to echo Walt Whitman, who loved and admired his president, Abraham Lincoln. Like Obama swearing on Lincoln's Bible, this seemed another nice tribute to the progress this country has made, and where much of it started.
