Inauguration 2013
 

Since I'm sure a lot of us are at home off work and watching, thought I'd start this thread!

Can I say I'm obsessed with Michelle's Thom Browne coat?

Everyone in the Obama family looks great. The girls are so beautiful and grown up!

It seems like just yesterday they were little kids...they're getting to be beautiful young women!

Hopefully the next four years go by quickly..

I'm just glad I moved further south of the District so I don't have to deal with traffic!

It did strike me how poised and polished Malia has become. She is truly a young lady now. She will start college before the end of this term. I wonder where she'll go?

It bothers me that they focus so much on the fashion of the women. I'm just not into that. We don't know who the designer of the President's suit was.

I told Hypo that when she's President, I'll perform the duties that Michelle's mom performs... helping with the kids and living in the White House.

My favorite excerpt from the speech:
"It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."

And my second favorite:
"We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other — through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security — these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

OMG YES! Let's get cracking on those second-term issues!

My high school's marching band is marching in the parade! So excited!

I could never walk down those steps without hanging on to something. Just sayin'. When I go down stairs, I have a death grip on the rail.

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enha...58791342-2.jpg

Old habits die hard ;)

^^^LOL

NBC's coverage with Al Roker was HYSTERICAL.

If it's any consolation, those of us who had that same feeling in January 1981, 1985, 2001 and 2005 can report that the Republic did indeed survive. ;)

It's posts like these that require a "Like" button.

I have to admit, I was really freaking out once or twice among those years listed. And the 2005-2009 years were really quite rough, but the Republic definitely survived.

Haha, I know we will survive.

The sad thing is, as a Republican, I disliked Bush as a president about as much as I dislike Obama as a president.

But would the Founding Fathers recognize it? ;)


And that will most probably be all that I have to say about that!

Did she just say an "audio enema?" I know the music is good but...

*sigh* Today was a good day. :)

Perhaps not in details, though in its essentials perhaps.

But then again, there is much about life in this country and in the world in the later half of the 20th Century and the early 21st Century that they wouldn't recognize and couldn't have imagined. As far as that goes, did they foresee the Civil War and its aftermath, which probably did more to shift the nature of the Republic than any other single event in our history?

An answer might also depend in part in exactly what aspect of the Republic one has in mind when answering the question. I think frequently what is implied in the question is "Would they recognize the expanded role of the federal government?" But I would suggest that there's more to it than that -- for example, would they recognize a Republic in which women, blacks and non-land owners can vote and hold office?

I think the relevant, if unanswerable, question is whether they would see the Republic as it exists today as a logical evolution appropriate for the context in which it exists. As to that, each speculator's mileage may differ.

More answer than you wanted to your rhetorical question, I know. :D

^And yet, a worthy opinion. I've often selected one or another historical figure, and wondered what he or she would think of today.

Abigail Adams is my favorite founding father, so I like to think she'd be pleased.

Mystic Cat your post is right on!
 

I think that your comment is incredibly insightful!

Well said, MysticCat. Our Founding Fathers could never have imagined the things we deal with today, where government deals heavily with social issues and the world is so diverse and interconnected. I sometimes wonder how Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson would have dealt with the issues of global instability or radicalism; or how Lincoln and Kennedy would have dealt with gay rights and other social issues.

In my last semester of law school I had one of my most enjoyable classes, a seminar called The Founders' Constitution. We read nothing but original writings by the Founders, and I am strongly of the opinion that they would not have recognized much about our post-civil war country. Certainly not since the populist movement. There are things that we do today that everyone takes for granted as being something the Founders would have supported, when in fact, they explicitly came out against it. (And never mind that the term "Founders" in and of itself is somewhat ridiculous to use in these contexts, since they had as many different opinions about how the government should be structured as politicians do today.)

But I like your response, that if they could see the evolution as a whole, I think they would at least understand why we are where we are.

Let's make no mistake though, it's not the past four years that have made a significant difference since the founding era.

My guess is that they'd be too busy trying to acclimate themselves to the idea that we're not an agrarian society anymore.

Yep to both statements.

On another topic, I don't care at all the Beyoncé lip-synced, and her performance didn't annoy me nearly as much as some others I've heard, but I wish that just once at an event like an inauguration, whoever sings the national anthem would be content to sing it the way it was written, without needing to make it "their own." Sometimes, it's really not about the singer.

When she first started, I said to my son "I think she's lip synching." I don't really care if they lip synch but I like the National Anthem best when it is sung as it was written. I'm a traditionalist though... I think pizza should always have cheese and pepperoni. I like ritual and the expected in many situations.

My daughter was there. They had a good spot right in the front/middle of the "free" area. She was so cold by the time everything started...they got there at 5 am. It was very inspirational, but she said she's never going again...too many people packed too close together.

She said no one liked the poet.

So, this is one of the things she's been doing instead of finishing her recruitment story. ;)

I told Hypo that her new aspiration should be inaugural poet since poetry is the genre that wins her awards. She said nobody she was watching with liked that one. And I told her "Exactly! You can do way better than him!"

I love his work. I think his poem was a bit long, but the white house chose from three options presented to them. In general, occasional poetry is kinda mediocre, and a very difficult genre to do well. I don't know that I've ever really liked an inaugural poem.