A New Dawn Rises In America

A Report from the Inauguration of President Barack Obama



by Richard B. Simon
January 23, 2008


We streamed toward the National Mall from all across the frozen city. At 8 am, the crowds were still thin by the Washington Monument, but closer to the Capitol, the buses had begun to arrive, and the stream thickened into thick, viscous flows of human lava.



Nearly two million people showed up at the Capitol Tuesday to see Barack Obama inaugurated as President of the United States. Around 250,000 had tickets. Many of them were not able to get in to their designated sections. We heard that a generator went out, and that magnetometers were therefore down - so some sections' gates were closed. At other gates, security (the Secret Service had the lead; Capitol Police were the boots on the ground) decided that the sections were simply too full - and so thousands with tickets were turned back. Thousands of ticketholders were stuck in a tunnel through the whole thing. There was virtually no crowd control. They should have hired an extra layer of rock industry professionals.



Every official ticketed entrance point was a choke point (though, at least at the Silver standing section, no one was actually checking tickets - the police were only looking for weapons.) Crowds thickened and thickened into them, with the occasional fear of a mad crush. Word was that an early push in which crowds in the front of the Mall bore down through the fencing separating off the wheelchair section left two people injured. Another woman, earlier in the morning, had been pushed by the surging throng into the tracks on the underground Metro. There was plenty of disappointment, but there was no violence, and no riot. Instead, when people tried to jump the lines, others said, loudly, "Barack wouldn't do it like that." Tempered, already, by those better angels.



When we finally got through the line, we were relieved, to say the least. We wound up just behind the reflecting pool, close enough to see the Capitol, the big picture, unobstructed, but we had to consult the big screen off to the side for the details. One woman (she works for Health and Human Services processing grants to Universities) and I traded notes as we watched the screens and commented on which dignitaries were approaching through the hallways, or being shown to their seats. Kennedy in a white hat, Jimmy and Roslyn Carter, Dan Quayle, the Clintons, the elder Bushes, and Cheney, all in black, in a wheelchair, with a villain's black cowboy hat - the evil F.D.R. from a parallel universe. When the M.C. introduced him, two million Americans booed.

As soon as Biden was sworn in, we felt the first rush of relief. "One down, one to go," said someone.

The moment was electric, atomic - a sense of complete awe and disbelief and palpable history, camaraderie and love for fellow humans, mixed with a twinge of fear that a million of those fellow humans might be just about to surge forward and push us down the concrete stairs and onto the iced-over reflecting pool, where we'd fall through, or be crushed, or both.

And then Obama was announced.

And then Obama took the oath.



African American women on the Mall in floor-length fur coats and fur hats, crying. I can only imagine what some of them had seen, what insults they may have suffered as little girls and as women, to make this moment so poignant. I cried with them. This is a whole different country than that in which they thought they had been living. We hugged, high-fived, shook hands, took each other's pictures. A whole new generation of flag-waving American Patriots was born on Tuesday. And a whole old generation of people who had not tasted the strange and bitter fruits, but who loved their country and believed in its principles, who despaired its hostile takeover and sharp veer toward fascist dictatorship, got their country back. Did you see them, the two million of them, waving those flags in unison, riding the rippling sound wave all the way to the white obelisk? As awe-inspiring as that terrifying opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics -- but free.



Obama spoke, and even as he thanked Bush, and subtly chided the two million who had booed, he slid the knife in beneath the scoundrel's rib. He essentially repudiated Bush's America, and declared that the bullying, go-it-alone America was done. America would continue to fight terrorists and enemies all, but it would do so without compromising its core values. America was back. He told us it was going to be difficult, and that we'd make it through, better and stronger. He challenged us. And he threw the gauntlet down to hostile foreign powers, in parallel to what the founding fathers had done in the Declaration of Independence: Open hand or closed fist. Your choice. He affirmed that we are a nation of Hindus and Muslims and Christians and Jews and non-believers and that our very strength emanates from our diversity. He reached out to his relatives' village in Africa, and said, for the first time the Leader of the Free World has ever said such a thing to anyone on any continent that was not Europe, we.

He called on Americans to roll up our sleeves and get to work on a New Green Deal - and, in rebuttal, he underscored that those who don't think we can do this simply do not get what has just happened in this country:

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift. And we will act, not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We'll restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

The degree to which I heard what I have longed to hear from an American leader was stunning.

In pretty much his every action and every belief, George W. Bush has been the exact opposite of what a leader should be. George W. Bush's version of America has been the exact antithesis of what my vision of America has always been. Bush's reign was one of secrecy and unaccountability in government, of cronyism and corruption, of corporatism and elitism, of division and holier-than-thou self-righteousness, of belligerence and bullying, of ignorance and contempt for knowledge and wisdom, of utter disregard for the planet on which our survival depends, for the rule of law, and for the central founding principles of this country: that in a democracy, the will of the people rules; the president works for the people; and the right of the people to know what the government is doing is essential to the health of the democracy. Bush's America was one of selfishness and arrogance and greed: I'll get what's mine, and if you don't like it, that's your problem. Bush's was a reign of propaganda, of trickery and deceit, a triumph of stagecraft over content. A looting and a pillaging of our pockets, of the national treasury, of the nation's future -- and of Iraq. And while the slogans trumpeted the spread of freedom and democracy abroad, the actions sought purposefully to choke freedom and democracy at home. It doesn't matter what the American people think, Cheney reaffirmed last week to an astonished Jim Lehrer. Real leaders, he said, ignore public opinion.

In his speech, Obama told us very clearly that he will lead, rather than rule. Imperial America yields once more to America, Democracy. The two can not coexist.

And so, this is an utterly astounding moment. Someone who seems to think as I think, and believe largely what I believe, who sees this country as I see it, is its President. It is unfathomable.

It is difficult to get used to hearing the phrase "The President" and not cringe in reflex. It is downright bizarre to hear the words "the White House" and have to remind oneself to no longer picture a hostile entity.

It is difficult to fathom not just tolerating, but actually liking the President. Obama has said that people project their hopes onto him. But perhaps that is because Obama is so many things. Then-nominee Joe Biden said it best, in what may or may not have been a flub, when he called the then-candidate "Barack America." Asian and African, Kansan and Hawaiian and New Yorker and Chicagoan, native-born and immigrant, islander and mainlander, wealthy author and welfare child of a single mom, street organizer and Senator, Constitutional Law Professor and a shooter of hoops. Roosevelt and Reagan, Lincoln and Kennedy and King. At this juncture, Barack Obama is America. He is the first President who is not an Anglo-Caucasian male - and so, for all of us who don't fit that description, this is a new country. It's one in which we really can, any of us, any of our children, grow up to be President.

Obama is also exceptionally charismatic -- which is, when it comes down to it, what Americans want in a president. It's why Clinton won, and Reagan; why Bush I beat Dukakis; why Bush v. Gore was a dead-even tie and why Kerry never had a chance, and it's why Obama was a shoo-in, from the moment he stood up to speak at Kerry's 2004 convention. He looks good on television -- and he looks cool on a t-shirt.



And so, everywhere, like mushrooms, sprang impromptu Malls selling Obama merchandise. On the sidewalks between the Capitol and Union Station. In Union Station. In every store with a cash box, including liquor stores and Ethiopian restaurants. All down Pennsylvania avenue in the Parade zone (where the Obamas stepped out of the black armored limo and signalled, visually, that the Presidency belongs to the American people again). Obama HOPE. Obama HISTORY. Inauguration of Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States of America I WAS THERE! One T-shirt featuring the famous photo of King and Malcolm X -- with Obama's head replacing X's. Another of the legendary Ali-Liston knockout, with Obama's head on Ali, and McCain's on Liston. Spangled shirts with Obama's head and name. And infinite ripoffs of Shepard Fairey's iconic HOPE poster. Obama's visage is, indeed, the new Che and the new Bob Marley, rolled into one. In the food court beneath Union Station, a tchotchke wagon in yet another impromptu Obama mall featured one Che belt buckle, and one Bob Marley. This, beside a whole wagon selling nothing but handmade Obama logo pins, and a storefront selling Obama T-shirts and posters and pins and jackets and calendars, caps and masks, its PA system broadcasting a CD of Obama's speeches set to sampled funk grooves.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a cult of personality.

This one has not been manufactured whole by propagandists as a means of social control. Still, we must be very careful. We must protect reason against emotion. We must be ever on guard for that shifting line between legitimate persuasion, which asks us to think, and propaganda, which tricks us into feeling, so that we do not think about whether our leaders are trying to sell us policies that are good for us, or that are merely good for them.

Bushism has been banished by the sands of time, repudiated by the will of the people. The pox is lifted. A half hour after the end of the ceremony, the helicopter rose from the East side of the Capitol, and swept the dome, and over the Mall - Bush getting his last glimpse of Washington before, like Nixon, leaving in disgrace. Earlier in the day when the now-former president was introduced, 1.8 million people on the Mall booed him with gusto. They sang the 1969 Steam novelty hit, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." In the back, by the Washington Monument, they sang Ray Charles' "Hit The Road, Jack."

The accountability moment, at last.



It appears now that, like Ali with George Foreman, the Democrats have been playing rope-a-dope with the outgoing Bushists, pretending that they were willing to let the malfeasance of Bush Cheney ooze, victorious, into the West - perhaps so that they would let their guard down. Suddenly, three years worth of missing White House emails reappeared. The transition of power took place. And, Wednesday night, Nancy Pelosi (our host) was on Larry King, talking about John Conyers' call to investigate Bush Administration policies:

I do think that there should be some review of some of the actions that may be criminal that occurred in the Bush administration. I don't know specifically the parameters of the investigation Mr. Conyers is talking about. I'm sure he will make that known to me.

Pelosi and company made the political decision to first take over the government, then pursue the crimes of the Bush Administration - rather than pursuing impeachment with Bush still in power, and risk losing both the legal battle against the fortified Unitary Executive, and the election. Bush was not driven ignominiously from office. But Pelosi always argued that that would have been impossible - the Republicans had enough seats in Congress to prevent it. We need to make sure that these investigations continue. Only a thorough airing of what happened can begin to prevent it from happening again, the Democrats from making the very same mistakes.



President Obama began immediately to roll back Bush's policies, signing a series of executive orders on Day One, beginning with stopping all pending Bush regulations (as Bush did to Clinton); inverting Freedom of Information Act policy so that releasing information to the scrutiny of the public is the rule, and secrecy is the exception (the opposite had been the case since Cheney's "task force" of energy industry robber-barons secretly plotted a do-nothing climate policy and the Invasion of Iraq); and taking steps to close (though not completely) the revolving door between White House service and lobbying the White House on behalf of private interests. He even froze pay for top-level White House staff.

Obama's new EPA Administrator is already looking to approve California's request for a waiver to allow it to lead the pack in setting Greenhouse Gas emissions restrictions. The waiver is customarily granted to California, whose clean air rules predated the national Clean Air Act - but Bush-Exxon-GM-Etcetera had opposed the state's efforts to limit carbon emissions.

On Day Two, Obama signed executive orders closing Guantanamo Bay Prison within a year, and banning torture. Senator John McCain approves. They were natural allies, from the start. On Day Three, Obama is pushing the beginning of the Green Deal through Congress and bombing al Qaeda in the mountains of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be in hiding. We are back to where we were before the Special Forces were pulled out of Afghanistan, and bin Laden was allowed to slip away and become the boogey-man driving the public's bloodlust for oil-rich Iraq. The Washington Post's analysis is that the Bush's permanent, boundless, limitless, lawless "War on Terror" is over.

The real new American century is about to begin.