My deepest sympthies to my colleague Joe Zefran for his Inauguration night disaster (see previous post). But as a consolation, here’s what Barack and Michelle Obama looked like when they finally got around to dancing at that inaugural ball.

Now it’s the morning after the night before, the newspapers around Washington have been snapped up by souvenir hunters. In the local shop, the woman behind the counter told me I had missed the last copy of the Washington Post by 20 minutes (although she wished me ‘happy Obama day’ as I left).

In the absence of hard copy, I have been taking a little tour of online commentary, including this sceptical take from the people at Politico.

For my money, the sharpest observer of Obama’s campaign has been former presidential speechwriter peggy noonan. This is her take on yesterday’s speech.

And here’s a final verdict from John Heilemann writing in the New York magazine website

‘His speech yesterday may not have been his prettiest or most intoxicating. But it may wind up serving a higher, more noble purpose: contributing to a climate where it’s possible to get shit done.‘

Nuff said.

The thick-necked (and sometimes just plain thick) law enforcement personnel told us at 10th and L St that will call was on the other side of the gigantic structure. I ran around so I could get the tickets before Barack Obama came and went. On the other side, sub zero temperatures starting to tingle my extremities, I and dozens of other well-dressed people clutching email confirmations were told there was no will call and that we would not get in.

I went through my paltry rolodex of peripheral people in Democratic politics and the media elite. No dice. I even rang the Washington Post city desk and got a hold of a reporter named Ruben. He’s on the case for us.

So now we’re sitting in the only restaurant near the convention center, a steak and seafood place that seems to have run out of most vegetables much to the chagrin of the two vegetarians in our party. Making the best of a crappy situation.

If this is now the Obama Administration is going to be run, America is in trouble.

The crowd was electric and most of us forgot how cold it was during the ceremony.

I feel bad for poet Elizabeth Alexander and Rev Joseph Lowery for most of the crowd cleared out immediately after the President’s speech.

After tonight’s parties, there is a sense that folks are ready to get down to the business at hand – as set out during Obama’s speech.

The T-shirt sellers pitch drifts across the mass of the people creeping forward on D Street.  It’s too cold for t-shirts. The sun has broken through the scrappy layer of cloud above Washington but the millions pushing towards the National Mall have taken the advice to layer up and keep warm. The crowd has closed in around me and for a moment I can sense fear rising from the parents in front of me. ‘Stay close dear,’ a woman says to her daughter in a high-pitch. I break away from the crowd only to see a policeman on all fours trying to resuscitate a man lying on his back by the side of the road. People stream by, unaware of the small, tragic drama being acted out beside them. Washington is a city of sirens today, and snipers on roofs, and National Guardsmen on street corners. This will sound disconcerting. On this day of joy and new beginnings and expectation and hope. But perhaps it is the reality-check we need. Americans are not naive. Their lives are full of fear and uncertainty. It is all around them. That is why this moment means the world to the millions churning forward all around me. To really appreciate the hope and joy they feel today you also have to understand the challenges all around them.

It is expected to hold the entire population of Ireland. Fortunately America’s reputation to build things big means the area of Croker several times over gives everyone some elbow room. Although on a day like today, being squeezed together as a huddled mass would be an appealing idea.

It is expected to hold the entire population of Ireland. Fortunately America’s reputation to build things big means the area of Croker several times over gives everyone some elbow room. Although on a day like today, being squeezed together as a huddled mass would be an appealing idea.

Standard Inauguration outfit:

-Leggings, tights, and/or bicycle trousers
-At least 2 pairs of socks
-Thick boots or shoes
-3-4 tops, jumpers, and/or hoodies
-Heavy winter coat in the wardrobe
-Gloves
-Hat
-Ear muffs
-Scarf (preferably without the PLO design as they are touchy about that sort of thing here)
-Thoughts of warm places like the Algarve, Greek Islands or Washington in the summertime
-Obama badges, hats, earrings etc

There are unsettling ghosts of America past all about the National Mall. Hundreds of thousands of people will gather there Tuesday for the inauguration of the nation’s first African-American president. Three blocks from where Barack Obama takes the oath, there was once the Saint Charles Hotel, a popular accommodation on Pennsylvania Avenue before emancipation ruined business for slave traders. It proudly advertised that down below its first-rate restaurant, guests could avail themselves of six, 30-foot-long arched slave cells, replete with wall rings and shackles. The management promised: “In case of escape, full value for the Negro will be paid.”

A few blocks from there was the notorious Yellow House, a three-story brick slave market where trader William Williams prospered enough to purchase two slave ships of his own. Solomon Northrup, a free man from New York who was kidnapped into slavery, passed through on the block and eventually wrote a memoir. He recalled how “the voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality,” in the nearby Capitol almost commingled with “the rattling of the poor slave’s chains.”