I just came back from watching the presidential inauguration at Proctor’s Theatre, which carried a live, high-definition transmission from CBS News, and one thing it did for me is remind me of why I long ago stopped watching television. Such non-stop gab on the part of commentators to fill every possible moment! Such relentless jumping of images! Such utter sensory overload, both aural and visual, almost all of it imbecilic, so that we watchers don’t have so much as a second to reflect. Never should we be left alone with our own thoughts, our own reactions, our own unfiltered perceptions, seems to be the operating principle.
And every few minutes, such a bombardment of cloying, manipulative, mind-insulting commercials, that after maybe half an hour I walked out, to wait in the lobby until the main event started, that is, Obama’s actual speech.
I am prepared to wager that people who routinely spend their evenings slumped in front of a television absorbing such banality must have their brains poached to goo after a few years, and I’m not surprised that they send me the kind of e-mails they send me. They cannot ever have had an original thought or even an honest thought; television-watching does not permit it.
As for Obama’s speech, I will leave that to the officially certified commentators. I thought it was good but not great, but I also thought expectations were way too high that he would match Lincoln. Indeed, Obama encouraged those expectations with his theatrical visit to the Lincoln Memorial, his reprise of Lincoln’s train ride, his taking of the oath on Lincoln’s Bible, all of which I thought was ill-advised. Be your own man, I thought, don’t try to be somebody else. Especially don’t try to be Abraham Lincoln. You’ll just disappoint people.
As for the taking of the oath, saints preserve us! He bungled it! Probably the most articulate man to become president in my lifetime. Or to be strictly accurate, he didn’t bungle it, Chief Justice John Roberts bungled it and left Obama stumped as to how to continue.
The official oath is: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” (Source: Wikipedia.)
Roberts got it backwards: “... I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully,” for good measure saying “to” instead of “of,” whereupon Obama started to repeat, then stopped, and they talked on top of each other, and finally Obama repeated it wrong, putting “faithfully” at the end.
They must have rehearsed every little detail of the ceremony except that one. Oh me, oh my.
As for the invocation, well, I am no great enthusiast when it comes to calling on unseen spirits, so I may not be the best judge, but I must say the effort by the megachurch pastor Rick Warren was a clunker. Just low level gas winding up with the quintessentially Christian “Lord’s Prayer,” as it’s known, dictated by Jesus, thereby snubbing the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and non-believers soon to be saluted by the new president in his own oratorical effort.
They might have gotten that particular act together, and the president-elect might have told him, keep it non-sectarian, Rick.
One thing went well, I thought. George W. Bush walked down the White House steps, got on his helicopter, and left town. Whew!
