Thursday, January 22nd, 2009...6:16 am
Not the Last Post on the Inauguration
Many friends of mine that had purple tickets to the inauguration got rogered and were not let in due to, I heard, problems with the magnetometers. I didn’t realize that this had made the news. The incident has led to an official apology from the Inaugural Committee and Diane Feinstein’s office. It has also led to, of course, a Facebook group.
Here’s the Tucson angle: the tickets that came from Raúl Grijalva’s office, including mine, were purple. I avoided the bad stuff, since the night before an angel who wants to remain anonymous gave us orange tickets.
On a related note, I posted several videos of the inauguration on YouTube. I will be linking them later. This led to a guy from the Capitol Police contacting me because he thinks the video will help with crowd control next time. By the way, I found the Capitol Police to be highly professional. The fact that out of two million people none were arrested is a tribute to their professionalism as much as it is to the peacefulness of the crowd.
(Oh, by the way, if we go by the low end estimate of 1.5 million people, that means one out of every 200 Americans was at the inauguration.)
Speaking of Grijalva, he asked me what my favorite lines were from the speech. I couldn’t think of just one, but in the intervening time the filter in my brain is working again. Here are a couple:
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
I’ll be posting links to the YouTube videos later.
10 Comments
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:21 am
The funny thing about both those lines is that W. was sitting there smiling like an idiot while President Obama ripped apart his Administration and the attitudes that defined his presidency.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 am
On first reading, I was struck by the visual metaphor: “…we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:53 am
Many people in the Blue Section were turned away, too. It was not that there was not enough room. It was that there was no crowd control for the “line” going in.
What could have been a quick and orderly line in to the event turned in to something resembling a Led Zeppelin concert crush. I don’t think anybody was hurt, but they very well could have been.
It was all very preventable with just a few cops and small barricades.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Was there anything positive that might qualify as a “best line” in your mind? Or are you just focused on the Bush-bashing?
We all know where we were before “Change,” but where are we going?
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Actually, that first line I listed was as much bashing liberals as it was bashing Bush. Give me a little credit here, Un.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I liked this statement: The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works …
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Three cheers for mB’s quote! [Steve Cody's quote was also good.]
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I think Jon Stewart highlights my favorite parts of the speech in this bit:
http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2009/01/is-this-what-you-call-change.html
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:46 am
I saw that Daily Show segment too–does that means all the Republicans are on board with Obama? Or can the same things be said at a different time with more conviction? The problem is Bush did the opposite of what he said–Obama has already started to undo some of Bush’s policies–like torture.
Words words words. It’s the action people take that matters.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:57 am
I was with Matt Heinz and Ken Jacobs. We also had the coveted Purple Tickets and did not get in.