There's a new facebook page that is gaining in popularity called "Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom." And while it sounds like another Indiana Jones sequel, it's actually a page for those of us who had tickets to the inauguration but got locked out of the event. And though I count myself among the refugees of the blue ticket holders section, I joined the group out of solidarity for my locked-out brethren.
A report in the Washington Post yesterday in which the Capitol Police gave reasons for people getting locked out, of which all of the reasons sought to absolve the Capitol's finest of any culpability. Of course, when one is using excuses such as "it was cold so people's extra clothing was taking up too much space" it really sounds like one is just reaching. Along the lines of "It's not me, it's you" and "the dog ate my homework."
I spoke to a friend this morning who has close ties to both the Inaugural Committee and the Obama campaign. The issue with the lines, which were prominent everywhere all weekend, was most problematic at the inauguration. Not just because of the volume of people, but because of the crowd management (or lack thereof). Capitol Police had twice as many officers on duty in the yellow and orange sections as they did in the blue and purple. However, the yellow and orange sections had half as many people as the blue and purple. Go figure.
My first thought was that, because tickets were fetching high bids on eBay, that there were a flood of counterfeit tickets in the mix. Because the tickets did not have barcodes, did not have holograms and did not have ink verification devices at check points. Those of you who had credentials for the Denver convention know that these are all standard protection measures. Nope, all these tickets had were an embossed seal for Congress. Even then, all you had to do was flash it to a guardsman. No examination, no scanning of the ticket, nothing.
But it turns out this may not have been a problem because there are reports that people without tickets were going through the gates. So why counterfeit a ticket if you don't need one in the first place? Sigh.
I try to take some solace in the fact that being locked out this year was part of the experience. Part of the overwhelming response to this country turning out and seeing a President being sworn-in. That silver lining is enough for me, but then again I dashed away early enough to see it live on TV.
Chief Justice Roberts re-administered the oath of office to President Obama today.
The following is a statement from White House Counsel Greg Craig:
"We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the President was sworn in appropriately yesterday. But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time."
Washington, DC—The 56th Inaugural Swearing-in Ceremony was the largest event in Washington, DC history. Months of planning by the staffs of the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, the Office of the Architect of the Capitol, the U.S. Capitol Police, and the United States Secret Service resulted in an extraordinarily successful and peaceful event that was enjoyed by well more than a million people.
There will be a number of estimates on crowd size. They'll come from a number of sources. But did you ever wonder how they actually calculated the estimates?
The old record for largest inauguration on the mall was said to be LBJ in 1965, with 1.2 million. That number was determined by the National Park Service, which always did the counts for Mall activities. Well, up until 1996. The Park Service said that the Million Man March in 1994 didn't attract anywhere near a million people. Others disagreed. Congress stripped the Park Service's money for counts. But the Park Service will come out with a count for yesterday.
What they do is use aerial photographs, dimensions of the area, and crowd density to generate a number. So, a crowd density of one person per 2.5 square feet would generate a much larger crowd than the usual density of one person per 5.0 square feet. The Park Service has historically used the 5 sf number, and they use their own Mall map grids.
No one, though, will be counting the people who were there, but turned away. Nor who watched on jumbotrons in museums on the mall, as reported by one of our commenters. (See comments under the "turned away" link.)
The DC police will be calculating, but they have said they will not be releasing their numbers. (USA Today, 20 January, page 6A).
I imagine that once the numbers are in for live attendence, parties in bars, restaurants, hotels, offices, and those who watched on TV or via live stream, it will be something amazing. That at noon, eastern time, people all around the world stopped, looked and listened. All at once. Probably it will be the biggest audience for anything in the history of the world.
That photo is from DCWer SLC Scott who watched the inaugural from near the World War II Memorial. Here's a guy who was so certain of Obama's victory that he bought his AMTRAK ticket before the election, went down, experienced, and caught his afternoon train back to New York.
I received a number of other photos, also, from people I know around the country who rented halls, or tookover restaurants and bars and celebrated with tons of friends. If you were one of the people who made it to DC and have a photo you'd like to have added to this post, please email it to us at the address on the left side bar, and we'll take care of it.
I liked the speech. I watched it at work in the conference room with a group of people who are, save one, completely non-political. The two youngest had never seen an inauguration before. One of them asked me why Rick Warren kept talking about "the black president" and why it seemed such a big deal that someone whose father was from Kenya was elected. We talked about it, and it turns out that she was raised in what she termed "a multi-cultural family, where some of my cousins had darker tans than the rest of us."She honestly sees no difference between people of various races, because to her, they are all just people. We need a lot more of that attitude.
I liked the speech. I liked the call to action, the accent on personal responsibility, the tone. I haven't picked a favourite line yet. It will probably be:
In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
But it may also be:
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
Perhaps it is the juxtaposition of how far we have come, with the responsibility we all have to hold fast to the fundamentals of what America stands for and "deliver it safely" to those who come after us.
In case you were wondering, the coats worn by the First Daughters came from J Crew. While the J Crew site didn't mention that it was their wares being worn, they did have a nice message for the first family.
And while I have never actually understood this whole fashion thing, I must admit that the girls really do look lovely.
Think back to being their age: would you have had the poise to go through all the changes and upheavals of the last months with their level of poise? Not to mention walking out in front of huge audiences.
Lucky for them, while we have a new President and First Lady, they have the same parents they always have. Who obviously love them, care for them, and have extended their live-in family to include their beloved grandmother. And instilled values: tomorrow morning, their first breakfast in the White House, and before that, they will still have to make their beds.
With a monumental event, there were also bound to be some monumental errors. For the most part, the inauguration this morning was conducted well. The program was strong, the piping of the audio and visual to millions of viewers on the national mall was solid, and the handling of more than 2 million spectators seems to have gone as well as can be expected.
But the crowd management conducted by the Capitol Police was so inefficient and lackluster, that tens of thousands of ticket holders were literally left out in the cold. Ticketing gates stationed around the capitol were coded as blue and orange on the south side of the capitol, and purple and yellow on the north side.
My original ticket was in the orange section with my fellow superdelegates. But because I only had one orange ticket, I traded for a blue ticket so that I could enter with my friends. We stood in line for three hours before throwing in the towel at 10:45 AM. The line was not moving much, and when it did move the progress could be measured in inches. So after three hours, we decided that it was better to walk back home and catch the event on TV then it would be to risk waiting at the gate and not get into the event and not seeing the speech.
There were no jumbo TV screens to direct crowds, relay messages or televise the event to those who couldn't get through the gates in time. There were no volunteers to direct traffic or keep people from breaking lines, there was little signage directing people and lines, and there was a single police officer - one man - who was charged with controlling the crowd at the entry point to the gates.
The previously mentioned orange ticket holder section moved quickly and seamlessly, in fact there were roughly one dozen metal detectors in the orange section which were unused while the blue section remained gridlocked.
And with the thousands of ticket holders who trekked out in below-freezing weather and were not admitted to the event in the blue section, the Washington Post reports that significant numbers of ticket holders in the purple section were also unable to enter the event.
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
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.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) has released a list of participants in the Inaugural Parade in the order of planned appearance.
It starts with Representatives from the US Army, United States Military Academy & US Army Reserve, and ends with the NASA Astronaut Crew and NASA Lunar Electric Rover. The full list is after the jump, and you can follow along with any last minutes changes at twitter.com/aficpao
There is always one Cabinet member who gets to go out of town for the Inauguration (and the State of the Union), just in case. Tomorrow, it will be Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.
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Tomorrow, the WHOLE White House staff loses the ability to IM one another. From Playbook:
The lawyers broke the bad news to Obama aides at a briefing Friday morning convened by incoming Deputy White House Counsel Cassandra Butts: Not only are they leaving the modern world to enter a White House where some of the clunky desktop computers still run Windows 2000 but-worst of all-they'll be forced to surrender a form of communication staffers have relied on for the last two years to communicate with each other, outside allies, and the press. From Axelrod, the chief campaign strategist, down to junior staffers in the press office, Obama's campaign relied heavily on software many of them began using in high school -- AOL Instant Message and Google Chat.
'Instant messaging, though little mentioned, is -- perhaps as much as email -- deeply woven into contemporary politics and media, whose fabric is the constant, quick, gossipy transmission of spin and information. But a calculus that's perhaps one part security, one part law, and two parts politics, has long barred instant messaging from the White House. 'They just told us flat out we couldn't IM in the White House,' groused one senior staffer Friday. 'It sucks. It's really going to slow us down,' complained another, saying that lawyers had warned that, along with Instant Messaging, White House software will restrict users to a range of sites roughly 'like your average grade school.' The clunky technology is standard issue for government offices, but the bar on instant messaging is particular to the White House. Legal and security experts say it is dictated by the fear of embarrassment if IMs were to be disclosed. The Presidential Records Act requires White House documents to become public five years after a president leaves office, and most lawyers think it would apply to any instant messages discussing government business.'
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Also from Playbook, work waits for no man...
Some senior staff will report to the White House even before the parade begins. AS SOON AS BARACK OBAMA IS SWORN IN, A COUPLE OF VANS WILL START TAKING TOP STAFF TO THE WHITE HOUSE. About 20 aides have already been cleared in so they can get into the complex and prepare for the next morning.
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Tomorrow, when the helicopter takes off with Baby and Laura Bush, they're done. Per CNN, they've already moved out. (I don't know about you -- but you'd think that if they were already done, they could have stayed at Blair House, or let the Austrailian stay at the White House, and have let the Obama's move in early, but that's just wishful thinking on my part. You know when **I** wanted them to move out...)
213 bars have applied to be open late all this week.
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President Obama's license plate reads "44" - but I've been unable to find out if he went with "Taxation without Representation". I guess we'll all find out tomorrow!
INAUGURATION DAY LOOKS DRY ACROSS THE WASHINGTON AREA WITH A MORE UPSLOPE SNOW OCCURRING OVER THE HIGHLANDS. THE DRY FORECAST FOR WASHINGTON IS A MODERATE TO REASONABLY HIGH CONFIDENCE FORECAST. THERE WILL REMAIN PLENTY OF STRATOCU UNDER AN UPPER TROUGH...SO THE SKY WAS INCREASED TO MOSTLY CLOUDY. TEMPERATURES WILL BE COLDER...HIGHS ONLY IN THE LOWER 30S...WHICH COMBINED WITH A BRISK WIND THAT MAY GUST TO 25 MPH AT TIMES MAY PRODUCE WIND CHILL VALUES IN THE TEENS. THOSE OUT AND ABOUT ON TUESDAY SHOULD DRESS FOR THESE COLD CONDITIONS. -NWS
Tomorrow is 19 January, Martin Luther King day. It is also designated as a day of service. You can check the offerings at MLKDay, or at the Obama Team site.
Whether you choose to participate in tomorrow's opportunities, or give time to your community in the near future, I hope you'll really consider it. If you aren't contributing already.
Volunteering is fun, and it is one of the most worthwhile things you can do with your time. It can be something you do alone, or with friends and family. If you have the time, you can take on a big project, like becoming a Big Brother or Big Sister. Short on time? There are time-limited projects: you can record a book for the blind. Handy? Consider Habitat for Humanity. Have more money than time? This is great time to drop off gently worn clothing, human and pet food, housewares...if you have things that others can use, there are community service organizations that can use them.
As we face the challenges our world now faces, we can each choose to be part of the solution.
Remember what Margaret Mead said:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
As we've been discussing for many days now, it's going to be cold. The difference between today's forecast and earlier ones is that we're now predicting high temperatures won't rise above freezing as the cold air mass appears to be deeper than we had been thinking. If there's any snow cover, that would make it even colder -- but that doesn't look terribly likely at the moment.
The wind won't be howling, but will make its presence felt blowing from the north at 10-15 mph -- with wind chills in teens in the morning and 20s in the afternoon.
As for snow, we're still thinking it's pretty unlikely. But there's enough uncertainty with the timing and strength of waves riding south along the jet stream that it's premature to remove it from the forecast.
There will be a number of estimates on crowd size. They'll come from a number of sources. But did you ever wonder how they actually calculated the estimates? 
What a day! What a day!
In case you were wondering, the coats worn by the First Daughters came from J Crew. While the J Crew site didn't mention that it was their wares being worn, they did have a 
With a monumental event, there were also bound to be some monumental errors. For the most part, the inauguration this morning was conducted well. The program was strong, the piping of the audio and visual to millions of viewers on the national mall was solid, and the handling of more than 2 million spectators seems to have gone as well as can be expected.
Tomorrow is 19 January, Martin Luther King day. It is also designated as a day of service. You can check the offerings at 
