When you say that to someone, they look confused, and then happy. It's funny. And what a great one it's been so far. Except for Kennedy's seizure, of course. And the global warming induced temperature here in Oakland (perfect 72 degrees, as opposed to the sub-perfect 52 degrees it should be). I would have liked to have live-blogged the inauguration but there were too many little people climbing me. But, my thoughts:
1. Flubbing the inaugural oath was good and bad. Good because I think I flubbed my wedding vows, and things have worked out so far. He was nervous, which few of us have ever seen before. It turns out that it was Justice Roberts' fault, but Obama smiled through it. The man screams aplomb, if aplomb can be screamed. It's bad because right-wing nuts will claim that he didn't actually take the oath and therefore isn't president or isn't bound to uphold the Constitution. Etc etc. Well, they can waste their energy on that, since it prevents them participating in a meaningful way in the public discourse.
2. I really like Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem. I took a class from her in college, liked her a lot personally and thought that was one of her better works. I mean, I like her other stuff too, but this one was really moving.
3. And the inaugural speech, like so many of Obama's speech, is even better read. I think it will stand the test of time, and we will look back on it and say, Yes, that's what we were going to do, and we did it (I hope). High school civics classes (do they still have those?) will be teaching this for a long time.
The above-picture was taken at the corners of Bush and Kearney Street in San Francisco this morning. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
1 comment:
We didn't have high school civics. We had "World Events' or "Current Events" with Miss O'Rourke...is that what they were calling it? Refresh my memory.
Actually I think the Oath was Obama's fault...he jumped the gun and started reciting too soon. It threw Justice Roberts off kilter. But it think it humanized them both. NO FIGHT FROM THIS REPUBLICAN...He is President Obama and I hope nobody wastes time disputing that.
I don't even understand the poem...but I am not good at sympolism, poetry, anything creative or giving too much thought to analyzing poetry.
I LOVED Yo-Yo Ma and Itzak Pearlman. I can't wait until the song can be downloaded.
And the speech. I thought it would be more exciting. Now that I read it a couple of times and watched it a few more times I realze that the somber tone is probably better. LOVED the line "...judge you by what you build, not by what you destroy".
The girls' looked darling in their little dress coats and I loved Michelle's dress and coat. I never cared for Mrs. Bush's style.
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