A day pulsing with history follows old script
By Calvin Woodward
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was altogether a more intimate affair than four years ago. Just a party of untold hundred thousands, chilling in the nation’s backyard.
President Barack Obama’s inauguration Monday brought out a festive crowd of flag-wavers who filled the National Mall to overflowing, hailed his moment with lusty cheers and spent their down time spotting celebrities amid the bunting.
No match for the staggering masses and adrenaline-pumping energy of his first turn as president on the West Front of the Capitol. But a lively second act.
After a roaring rendition of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” came James Taylor strumming his guitar and singing “America the Beautiful.” Then an all-for-show swearing-in, replicating the official one Sunday.
Then Obama spoke, as all presidents must in one way or another, about “one nation and one people,” healing words after a battering ram of an election and before the partisan struggles ahead. The address clocked in at 18 minutes. He ran 52 minutes in 2009.
Sharon Davis of Suitland, Md., retired after 22 years in the Air Force, said it all made her proud beyond words. “There’s a lot of energy here today,” she said. “But it doesn’t compare to last time, when it was just off the charts.”
Hours before the pageantry, people on foot spilled out of Metro stations near the White House and streamed toward the scene, official vehicles sealed off intersections blocks from the White House and Obama stood for a blessing in the “Church of Presidents.”
The service at St. John’s Episcopal Church captured the intended tone of the day: unity. Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church spoke in the blessing of “this new season of opportunity after conflicting opinions and visions and platforms clanged against each other like a resounding gong. “
A sea of people filled stretches of the National Mall from the West Front of the Capitol back to the Washington Monument and beyond, to the reflecting pool. No one expected a repeat of the unprecedented crowds of four years ago. But for many thousands, it was not to be missed.
Outside the Capitol, scene of Obama’s noontime inaugural speech, people had their pictures taken with the flag-draped building in the background. Justices, lawmakers, Cabinet members and former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter filled prime seats. Katy Perry, Eva Longoria, Beyonce and John Mayer were among stars on the platform.
It was overcast with a breeze, 40 degrees at noon, sparing the crowd the biting cold morning of four years earlier.
Kenya Strong, a 37-year-old financial analyst from Charlotte, N.C, brought her daughter, Ty, for the second time. Like Richardson, she said the event holds lessons for the young.
“It’s really important for her to understand that her potential is endless,” she said. “You have so much to live and look forward to, for yourself personally, for our country — just to see that there’s more than the here and now.”
Ty Strong, now 15, toted a new camera and broader expectations than in 2009 about the kind of people she’d meet — not just African-Americans like herself.
“There were a lot of different faces among the crowd that you don’t expect to see on an everyday basis — like more foreigners,” she said. “It was nice.”
At midmorning, Metro subway trains through downtown Washington were no more crowded than they would be on a typical workday — except few were going to work. Although transit officials urged riders coming in from the suburbs not to change trains, passengers had little trouble switching at the busy Metro Center station.
Terry Alexander, a Democratic state representative from South Carolina, and his wife, Starlee Alexander, were taking a leisurely ride from their downtown hotel to Union Station. Four years ago, they had to ride a bus to the Pentagon from their Virginia hotel and walk across the 14th Street Bridge to the National Mall.
Obama’s motorcade went into motion several hours before the speech, taking him with his family to St. John’s Episcopal Church. Before the sermon, R&B performer Ledisi sang the solo “I Feel Like Goin’ On.”
On recent visits to the “Church of Presidents,” Obama has taken to ditching the motorcade in favor of walking back to the White House through Lafayette Park.
But this was a day for a speech, a parade and the many decorative rituals of power, not an idle stroll.
Obama says ‘America’s possibilities are limitless’
By Julie Pace
AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring “our journey is not complete,” President Barack Obama took the oath of office for his second term before a crowd of hundreds of thousands Monday, urging the nation to set an unwavering course toward prosperity and freedom for all its citizens and protect the social safety net that has sheltered the poor, elderly and needy.
“Our country cannot succeed when shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it,” Obama said in a relatively brief, 18-minute address. “We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class,” he added, echoing his calls from the presidential campaign that catapulted him to re-election.
The president declared a decade of war is ending, as is the economic recession that consumed much of his first term.
He previewed an ambitious second-term agenda, he devoted several sentences to the threat of global climate change and said that failure to confront it “would betray out children and future generations.”
Obama’s focus on climate change was notable given that he barely dealt with the issue in his first term.
In an era of looming budget cuts, Obama said the nation has a commitment to costly programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. “These things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us,” he said.
Sandwiched between the bruising presidential campaign and continuing fiscal fights, Monday’s inaugural celebrations marked a brief respite from the partisan gridlock that has consumed the past two years.
Standing in front of the flag-bedecked Capitol, he implored Washington to find common ground over his next four years. And seeking to build on the public support that catapulted him to the White House twice, the president said the public has “the obligation to shape the debates of our time.”
“Not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals,” Obama said.
Moments earlier, Obama placed his hand on two Bibles — one used by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the other used by Abraham Lincoln — and recited the brief oath of office. Michelle Obama held the Bibles, one on top of the other, as daughters Malia and Sasha looked on.
Vice President Joe Biden was also sworn in for his second term as the nation’s second in command.
Monday’s oats were purely ceremonial. The Constitution stipulates that presidents begin their new term at noon on Jan. 20, and in keeping with that requirement, Obama was sworn in Sunday in a small ceremony at the White House.
