I still don’t know what the inauguration ceremony looked like four years ago. At the time, I was living in a one-room cinderblock structure in the Iraqi desert roughly sixty miles southwest of Baghdad, where five other servicemen and women and I slept on cots and ate MRE’s and did everything in our power to avoid consciously recognizing the fact that our fellow Americans had just reelected the man whose decidering had situated us there.
So after returning to the States in 2005, moving to Washington D.C. in 2008, viewing the election returns on November 4th at an Adams Morgan bar, and marching from there to the White House at midnight with an exultant throng of strangers to sing the Star Spangled Banner until 3 a.m., I was certain that my experience on January 20th, 2009, would be a study in contrasts: certainly I would have tickets to the ceremony and a ball or two; certainly I would find myself within arm’s reach of Barack Obama himself; certainly I would be swimming in rivers of champagne in the backs of limousines with people like Sonja Sohn and… it gets a bit unclear at this point.
But in the stark light of day, as I considered contacting my representatives from Oregon to ask for those tickets, I could only imagine some sort of begging routine that referred back to the subject of this blog post’s first paragraph — and although I suppose even now that such a strategy might have worked, I still can’t fully picture the tone such a letter would strike. So time passed, the tickets dried up, and I came to realize that the more visceral experience was going to be that of finding a spot on the mall among the millions of unticketed Americans now swarming into town.
As of Monday, January 19th, it still looked like I was going to experience the inauguration alone, even among the sea of celebrants. My not-a-Democrat roommate William Beutler certainly wasn’t planning on braving the cold. He did have an old high school friend coming into town with a sister in tow, however — so at least I might have someone to walk down there with.
Then on Monday night my co-NMS-er Ben Tribbett got me into an incredible fête: the Netroots Nation Yes We Can Party at the Clarendon Ballroom. Howard Dean showed up in a T-shirt and gave a stirring pep talk. Stepping out for some air, I had the pleasure to meet John Amato of the incredible blog Crooks and Liars. “I don’t think I’m gonna deal with the cold tomorrow, man,” he said as he happily puffed a cigar. “I’m just beat. I had to be in town for this; it’s great; but it’s been hard work and I’m tired.” A couple other people whose names I didn’t catch told me about their silver tickets, and how early they'd have to arrive in the morning to take their spots. “What kind of tickets do you have?” they asked me. “No tickets,” I responded. “I’m just hanging with the hoi polloi.”
When I got to meet Bill’s guests in the morning, I learned of their uncommon personal investment in Obama’s inauguration: as second-generation Kenyan-Americans, they truly were about to witness one of their own ascending to the highest office in the land. They had never been to D.C. before, so around 9 a.m. we all agreed to avoid the hassle and uncertainty of the Metro and simply walk to the Capitol.
Our starting point was the intersection of three historic Washington neighborhoods: Adams Morgan, Mt. Pleasant, and Columbia Heights. As we made our way down 16th Street, we saw jubilant families walking hand-in-hand, churches giving free coffee and hot chocolate to passersby, and countless entrepreneurs hawking Obama-themed T-shirts, calendars, hats, flags, and buttons.
Once on the Mall at 10 a.m., the three of us made it roughly as far as the Washington Monument, as more and more people crowded in behind us. A JumboTron provided an excellent view of the politicos and diplomats taking their seats on the Capitol steps. A girl who had lost her boyfriend sat on the shoulders of two tall strangers, waving her hat and screaming his name. When George W. Bush appeared on the JumboTron, a thunderous boo arose from the crowd. I didn’t disagree with the sentiment, but the expression of it didn’t seem to fit the occasion. Then, as Rick Warren extended his prayer to focus on the Obama family, pronouncing the name “Sasha” with an incongruous relish, the crowd exploded. “SASHA!” several people mocked, and everyone laughed.
The cheer that erupted when John Paul Stevens administered the oath of office to Joe Biden was muted by a guffaw of exasperation, as it was followed not by Obama’s oath of office but rather an original John Williams composition. The sun had just disappeared behind some clouds, which resulted in an immediate chilling pall. “Somebody throw some lyrics on this!” someone shouted. “Somebody inaugurate Obama already,” a man directly behind me sang in response, “so I can get out of this cold already.”
When Barack Obama finally stood before John Roberts, the roar of approval was more deafening by far than the earlier booing of Bush. Each time the view on the JumboTron panned back to the Washington Monument, someone would shout, “That’s us!” and we would all wave our flags or arms ecstatically. Due to a seven-second audiovisual delay that had emerged during Senator Feinstein’s remarks, no one in my vicinity knew what to make of the halting delivery of the oath; I had no idea who had fumbled which lines until I got home to watch the news.
As soon as President Obama was done with the microphone, the crowd turned and began to move in one mass, and the prospect of stopping was hopeless. As Inaugural Poet Elizabeth Alexander intoned, “Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each other’s eyes or not, about to speak or speaking,” someone walking past me said, “Hey, I’ll catch it on TV later— right now Barack is President, and right now my ass is also freezing.”