I decided to watch the Inauguration today. I sat A. in my lap and told her this is the only president you are going to know as President for the first 8 years of your life so you should watch this. That way I can tell you you watched it which, I know, it's pathetic, I wish someone could have told me about walking on the moon back in 1969, shortly after I was born.
Not that that matters.
In any event, I got lucky and switched from The Daily Show on the Tivo to MSNBC shortly before the beginning of the ceremony. I liked Feinstein's speech. I despised Warren's prayer. In fact, after the first minute or so, I turned the sound off because I found it so objectionable. When it seemed about time to wrap up, I watched his lips for forever and ever amen so I could turn the sound back on at the appropriate time. Turns out church going has its (limited) uses.
The Great Goddess Who Smirks Down on Us All probably laughed her ass off over that little display of idiocy. ETA: And beamed down favorably on Aretha Franklin's extremely cool hat and excellent rendition of My Country 'Tis of Thee.
I'm no fan of Williams (altho apparently R. hates his work even more than I do) and I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone who have a chamber piece commissioned for an inaugural of any sort, much less one of this historic scale. A _chamber_ piece? Are you nuts? Oh well. Obama's speech was pretty good (thank you for including unbelievers in your list of peoples). The poem confused me at the beginning, but ended very strong -- I teared up a little about the builders of the capitol who now clean it. And Rev. Lowery's Benediction made up for the evils of the invocation. I said Amen, all three times. With call-and-response, it's hard not to, but I joined in enthusiastically. I even sang along with the national anthem (and those who know my previous life as a JW may find that shocking). I want a flag, for the first time ever.
But the Very Best part of a Good Day was hearing the crowds singing something that the commentators on MSNBC carefully did not talk about:
Na na na na na na na na hey hey hey Good Bye!
It sounded like it could have been 10s or 100s of thousands of people singing that in unison, as Executive One circled the airspace above the Mall.
May he only return in handcuffs and shackles, to be tried for high crimes, for war crimes, for the treason he committed against us all.
ETA: Oh, what the hell. Everyone else is commenting on it anyway. Justice Roberts goat-fucked the oath. It wasn't a one-word screw-up the way some of the coverage is saying, and it wasn't a matter of Obama and Roberts screwing up. It was a straightforward screwup on the part of Roberts and had several components. There was that weird "President to the United States" (to/of confusion), there was the misplaced faithfully, there was inappropriate pausing that caused confusion as to when he wanted the President to repeat. The President was a sport, and "it doesn't really matter" because this is ceremony and the President is President regardless of what happens with hands on books and words and crap but I think future generations are going to have a Ton o' Fun with the symbolism set here. The Court is going to trip all over itself trying to slow down much needed change. The next ten years for the Supremes will be something we all look back on with disgust and shame.
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