BHO’s Great Getting’ Up Day

I woke up at 5 am this morning, as excited as a kid at Christmas, though I fought the urge to turn on the TV until a single hour remained before what CNN is calling “The Moment”. Today is America’s day for grand spectacle and memorable oratory.

The parade of past Presidents included a surprisingly robust Jimmy Carter and a hobbled, cane-dependent George Bush Sr.  There were cheers for Bill Clinton but surprisingly no boos for George Bush Jr.  Cheney’s wheelchair was a perhaps more telling metaphor of the failures of the past eight years than were Prez 43’s mixed grimaces and painful smiles.

As the CNN cameras followed Barack’s walk toward his inauguration, it seemed he was walking slowly, as if to relish and remember every step.

There were a few boos from the Mall when Rick Warren began his invocation, a prayer that sounded more like a homily than an appeal to the Big Guy.

First Lady of Soul Aretha Franklin sported more hat than was needed to ward off the DC cold, though it did distract a little from the sad fact that her voice, and her phrasing, are not quite what they used to be. Ultimately, she rendered a rousing version of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee“.

The crowd cheered Joe Biden before he took his oath but chanted their new President’s name before Barack took his.

Between the oaths, some of the finest classical musicians in the world–Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, and Gabriela Montera–premiered John Williams’  “Air and Simple Gifts“, a pensive yet hopeful piece that included the first two phrases for the Shaker Hymn “Simple Gifts “, and was a sort of homage to Copland’s “Appalachian Spring“.

On this day everyone was there for the parades and the hoopla, but no less The Speech.

It is, the President said, time to put away childish things. It was a call for toughness, but also for faith, hope, and charity in a new age of hard choices.

Poet Elizabeth Alexander’s “Praise Song for a New Day” echoed Obama’s calls for sober sacrifice and “walking forward in the light”. Dr. Joseph Lowery’s benediction paid tribute to the Civil Rights movement and to the Biblical prophets, ending on a lighter note of hopefulness.

That seemed to be the message of Barack Obama’s Great Gettin’ Up Day. Our situation is desperate, but not hopeless. The dream, though unfulfilled, is not dead.

Today, as on September 11, 2001, we are all Americans.