America's Inauguration (Part 2 of 6)

Frequently reported sterile statistics gave scope to the event. 1,544,000 riders on the Metro subway system on a single day. 1,800,000+ spectators packed onto the National Mall. 130 tons of plastic water bottles, foam coffee cups and little American flags on sticks swept up in the middle of the night after what some hoped would be a “Litter Free Inauguration.”

One of the ubiquitous sidewalk vendors of Obamabilia said it more colorfully: “Hurry up folks! Two million people, only 1.5 million T-shirts! Limited edition! Get ‘em while they last!”

The apotheosis of O-Ba-Ma was part clever showmanship, part chaotic mosh pit, and all bane of headline writers struggling to avoid cliché. Historic. Hope-filled. Record-breaking. Uniquely American. The party started days in advance of the actual swearing in. Organizers pledged superlative after superlative: Biggest, greenest, most inclusive, most star-studded. By and large, they succeeded.

Thematically, the Keep Hope Alive architects of the most effective political campaign since Reagan’s Morning in America wasted no time dialing it up a notch. “Yes We Can” gave way to “Yes We Did” only briefly. The stakes were quickly raised to the iconic. Obamamania became suffused with Lincolnaphilia. A whistlestop train tour down the East Coast duplicated the one taken by Honest Abe prior to his inauguration. A concert was staged on the steps of the Great Emancipator’s shrine. Obama’s hand was placed on the same Bible used in Lincoln’s swearing in. The inaugural address emphasized dark and difficult days ahead.

But whereas Lincoln may have been perceived as an unlikely preserver of the Union and liberator of slaves on the day of his ascendance, Obama was greeted with no such skepticism by the millions gathered to see him on January 20, 2009. Another superlative: Perhaps never has a president assumed office with such astronomical expectations laid upon him. The electors of O-Ba-Ma were ready and waiting for their respective emancipations. They were ready for them right now.

Forgive this writer his Manichaean outlook. He was just a Caucasian boy from America’s Great White West on a journey to Our Nation’s Capital for the inauguration of Our First Black President. This writer had been to Washington many times before as a small tooth on a minor cog in the machinery of Republican hegemony. His Republican friends in Washington, for the most part, had the decency and good sense to evacuate the capital during the main event. His Republican friends back home, for the most part, confined themselves to buying more guns and re-reading scriptures pertaining to the Apocalypse.

This writer’s traveling companion, on the other hand, was a different product of the West. She was also white, but a non-homogenized manifestation of the melting pot. She was a Christian who practiced her Jewish heritage. She had bi-racial children and two decades of experience raising them in a cradle of white suburbia. She voted for Reagan and both Bushes, but had blue signs on every side of her corner lot from the latest winning campaign’s inception. She was fond of pointing out that Obama was not destined to be our first black president, but that he would be the first bi-racial one.

Arriving in the District of Columbia this time, they instantly noticed what was different: A veritable sea of brown faces. Or, rather, a sea of brown faces with smiles. So they plunged in. They shunned the traditional regional balls and familiar venues from Bush years lobbying. They migrated from K Street to U. They signed up for events promoted by the “Hip Hop Caucus” and confederations of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and other nominally enfranchised peoples. They sought an answer to the question: How does change taste?