(The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 1/21/09, Editorial)
History and circumstance ensured yesterday’s drama. President Barack Obama’s presence and oratory met expectations. Every Inauguration celebrates the American experiment. In sentiment and tone, Obama delivered.

Hail to the chief.

Rituals convey majesty. They assert the traditions that nurture individual talent. Yesterday offered ruffles and flourishes, as well as manifest goodwill. Obama cited sacrifice and called for renewed responsibility. If his speech lacked phrases as arresting as John Kennedy’s “ask not,” then it captured its audience — which in this instance was not only the nation but the world.

Obama’s reliance on cadence reflected artistry. His voice would accelerate at precisely the right moment. His sentences grew into paragraphs. Paragraphs echoed as though they originated deep in the rich veins of liturgy. Style can indicate substance — and regarding presidential leadership often is substance; yesterday gave Americans a glimpse of what will be. Style cannot foretell judgment, however, and the quality of judgment is not known until it is required. Tests are inevitable.

Commentators parsed Obama’s speech for partisan implications with the scrutiny sullen scholars apply when analyzing the works of Herman Melville. Some discerned conservative generalities and liberal specifics; others detected centrism, post-partisanship, and 100 additional clichés. The blather was as futile as it was amusing. It is time, the new president reminded a young country built on ancient truths, to cast away childish things. From him, citizens heard mystic chords.

The first African-American president is also the 44th president. The ceremonies — solemn yet elated — suggested continuity. America has a lovely face; yesterday its countenance radiated joy. “Defend our liberties,” says a prayer for our country, “and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.” E pluribus unum. Let everyone sing the song.

The Inaugural Address offered hints of policy but few details. Those will come, as will disputation. The debate will grow bitter. It would be sweet indeed if every four years the United States could bottle the atmosphere of the quadrennial Jan. 20, yet humans probably should be grateful they heed their better natures as often as they do. Save us, believers pray, from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance. The supplication would not be made if it were unnecessary.

When George Bush took the oath of office eight years ago, few, if any, predicted the event that would define his presidency. Obama arrives amid clear and present danger. The outlook has changed considerably since he opened his campaign. It could be his fate to serve during one of those periods history identifies as an era. Lincoln said, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” Many are the gods that have failed.

Americans salute their president and wish him well (which does not signal automatic acquiescence with each and every proposal). They also remain ever mindful of Obama’s call to renewed recognition of personal and social responsibility. America proves itself when its people prove themselves. There were giants in the earth in those days; let there be again.

NEW YORK – North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham area had the largest TV audience during inauguration coverage of President Barack Obama.

Nielsen Media Research says the Raleigh-Durham market had more than 51 percent of households tuned to Tuesday’s events.

Nationally, about 30 percent of TV homes were tuned to the inauguration coverage in the 56 local television markets measured by Nielsen Media Research. Seattle-Tacoma had the lowest viewership, with just 18.8 percent.

The audience estimate reflects live coverage on 14 broadcast and cable networks from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, as well as CNBC and ESPN that aired the inauguration from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST.

This preliminary count represents about 70 percent of the nation’s total TV households.

BY MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

Johnnie Taylor shook her head, raised her arms and mouthed a silent prayer as the band struck up “Hail to the Chief” for President Barack Obama.

Taylor, 60, recalled her youth as a civil-rights activist who was yanked from a lunch-counter stool during a Woolworth’s sit in. The conflict resolution trainer at the Richmond Peace Education Center sees Obama’s presidency as the product of divine intervention.

“When things like this happen, it’s not by accident. It’s not by history. It’s an ordained event,” she said. “I know man had to vote, but God made this happen.”

Kayla Hill-Jones was born a half-century after Taylor, but bore a psychic load no less onerous. For the Glen Allen Elementary School fourth-grader, yesterday meant this: “That I can accomplish anything, even though I’m black.”

Taylor and Kayla were among three dozen people who watched Obama’s inauguration at Highland Park’s Fire House 15 as they washed down chili, cornbread, tossed salad and brownies with sweet iced tea. The fire station-turned-eatery is run by Boaz & Ruth, a nonprofit that seeks to transform Highland Park, serve as a community bridge and rebuild the lives of formerly incarcerated men and women.

As I listened to a 10-year-old child describe her brave new world, it brought to mind the old one of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Upon telling his young daughter that the Atlanta amusement park Funtown was closed to black children, he could see “ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky.”

Those clouds have hovered over the collective mental sky of African-Americans throughout the nation’s history.

Yesterday, the skies cleared.

The forecast for America is another matter. The nation’s helm has been handed to an African-American during one of the most turbulent times in our nation’s history.

Adria Scharf, director of the Richmond Peace Education Center, described yesterday as “disorienting,” and indeed, there was a magical aura that bordered on surreal. You might say the country has found its bearings after straying wildly off course from the grand ideals charted in its founding.

The journey toward that ideal is far from complete. But perhaps for the first time, many of us understand how King felt in the famous speech that foreshadowed his death. Like him, we don’t know what will happen now. There are difficult days ahead. But that doesn’t matter as much anymore. We’ve been to the mountaintop.

“I’m 50,” said Ruth Cosby, a Boaz & Ruth graduate who supervises its furniture store at Third and Main streets. “I thought I would never see this. I just couldn’t stop crying. I think this is going to unite us as a country, and we’re going to realize Dr. King’s dream.”

If that’s the case, it’s children such as Kayla who stand to inherit a nobler nation.

Kayla’s parents, Stan Jones and Regina Hill, are supporters of Boaz & Ruth. “We wanted her to experience giving instead of receiving — of serving others,” her mother said of Kayla.

Kayla wore a red and blue T-shirt that featured a portrait of the new first family inside the presidential seal.

“She said she wanted to be the first African-American president,” her mother said, chuckling. “I told her she could be the first woman.”

NBC17 traveled along with some Triangle residents to Washington. Check out their reactions to Tuesday’s event here.

Did you attend the inauguration? Tell us about your experience.

In an inauguration defined by a sense of change, the experience of watching Barack Obama take office was fittingly revolutionary.

Like never before, Americans watched the inauguration of an incoming president online through live video streaming across their computers. And wholly wrapped up in following Inauguration Day 2009 on the Web was reacting to them – blogging, vlogging and tweeting.

Essentially every major news outlet offered live feeds on their respective Web sites in what was potentially the most Web-driven coverage of a significant news event yet. It was partly out of necessity, since many viewers were at work in front of their computers – and away from TV sets – for the midday swearing in.

It was also a notable benchmark in the fast evolution of online video. At the time of the last inauguration, YouTube didn’t even exist.

The major news portals – Yahoo.com, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, AOL News, The New York Times, ABC.com, CBS.com, Fox.com, WashingtonPost.com – all streamed the festivities, some with video embedded right on their home page for the first time. Akamai Technologies Inc., which delivers Internet video for many Web sites, said the inauguration was a record for them, with 7.7 million people watching video streams at the same time.

So much video meant bandwidth was stretched considerably for many sites and many servers. On the whole, the webcasts appeared to function well, albeit with some lags. Keynote Systems Inc., which tracks Web site performance, said the Internet’s top 40 sites slowed down by as much as 60 percent when the ceremony started at 11 a.m., and many news sites saw even sharper declines in performance.

Many sites streaming the festivities gave four different perspectives on the ceremony, giving the viewer the option of watching the primary feed, the crowd amassed along the Mall or other views. The Associated Press’ Online Video Network provided a webcast for many news outlets, including AOL News.

Several outlets looked to combine traditional coverage with new media interactivity.

CNN partnered with Facebook (for users of the social networking site) to include status updates from friends alongside the webcast.

The result was that it (kind of) felt like you were watching along with your friends.

As of 3:30 p.m. EST Tuesday, CNN.com said it served more than 21.3 million live streams globally since 6 a.m. That was nearly four times the amount of live streams on the site on Election Day when there were 5.3 million lives streams.

Mimi Wong, a 28-year-old public defender from Brookline, Mass., watched the CNN.com webcast at work with her colleagues.

“It was pretty cool,” said Wong. “I was actually kind of surprised that the connection was so good.”

Current TV, the user-driven TV network co-founded by Al Gore, likewise combined streaming of the event with Twitter messages or “tweets.” Messages from viewers played at the bottom of both Current’s broadcast and webcast.

Other webcasts were offered by Hulu.com, C-SPAN.org, Joost.com, Ustream.tv (whose feed was available on iPhones, too) and the Presidential Inauguration Committee itself (www.pic2009.org).

But not everyone had a seamless experience watching online. Lyndsey Lewis, a 22-year-old student at the University of Florida, wanted to catch the inauguration online at her school library before heading to class. She checked the webcasts from numerous sites, including CNN and Hulu but was frustrated by the interruptions.

“There were so many pauses that I missed really crucial moments of the inauguration,” said Lewis. “I didn’t expect it to be TV quality, but I definitely thought it would be a lot better than it was.”

Loath to leave behind his BlackBerry, Obama is easily the most tech-savvy president and the country’s first president of the Web 2.0 era. Shortly before taking the oath, he also issued a tweet of his own:

“We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you.”

The inauguration committee offered official inaugural news updates, transportation notices and invitations by cell phone text messages.

“There’s just a lively discourse on our Web site,” said Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for the inauguration committee. “It’s very satisfying because our goal here is to make people feel connected to the party and to the events in Washington and to their government.”

Several sites aimed to let people in on the celebrations in Washington.

The Huffington Post hosted a ball Monday night in Washington that included blogging from attendees, live video on the Web site and photos.

Second Life and Wee World also hosted virtual inaugural balls so that even if you were far away from the festivities, your avatar could be partying the night away.

A number of sites offered bells and whistles to their coverage.

The Washington Post provided satellite imagery of the District of Columbia area and culled a user-generated photo mosaic of Obama through submissions on Flickr.com. (The photo site also began to see pictures pour in Tuesday from Washington and elsewhere, documenting the day.)

YouTube partnered with C-SPAN to gather inaugural addresses from presidencies past. One of YouTube’s stars, Obama Girl, streamed her take on the events live on Stickam.com.

MSNBC.com created a video explorer to let users search transcripts of the past 18 inaugural speeches, matching words with the corresponding video. MSNBC.com and CNN.com both touted Microsoft’s “photosynth” technology, a 3-D panorama of the inauguration.

“CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric followed the network’s prime-time special with an hourlong webcast on cbsnews.com. A more laid-back Couric reported live from the Commander in Chief Ball and apologized if she seemed “a little cuckoo” after being on the air for so long.

A digital transition was also evident at the official site of the president. At noon EST, WhiteHouse.gov unveiled a new design.

It announced: “Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov.”

North Carolina leaders and supporters of President Barack Obama spoke of racial progress and high expectations Tuesday as they watched him make history by taking the oath of office.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq will be on the agenda Wednesday when the new commander in chief meets with top national security aides and senior commanders, officials said.

Obama was summoning his holdover defense secretary, Robert Gates, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, to the White House, along with other members of his National Security Council, to discuss a way ahead in the war, according to two senior military officers.

The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because the White House had not publicly announced the meeting.

The war in Afghanistan also was to be discussed, with the commander overseeing both conflicts, Gen. David Petraeus, scheduled to attend.

Also scheduled to participate via videoteleconference were Gen. David McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq.

During his campaign, Obama said he intended to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months, although it was not clear Tuesday whether the president would issue a hard-and-fast order Wednesday to end the war on that specific timeline or declare his intentions in more general terms.

In his inaugural address Tuesday, Obama said he would “begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan,” though he offered no details about his plan for either war.

Petraeus is in the midst of a broad and deep review of his entire region of responsibility, which encompasses Iraq and the rest of the Middle East as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of Central Asia.

With the inclusion of Petraeus, Odierno and McKiernan, the meeting Wednesday appeared to reflect, at least in part, Gates’ preference for offering the president a full range of views — from senior civilians as well as top military commanders — at key junctures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military service chiefs, with whom Obama would be expected to consult at some point, were not expected to attend Wednesday’s session.

Ben McNeely

I stood next to Joyce Miller, a teacher from Texas, and her family in a giant crowd that was waiting to get through the Indiana Avenue checkpoint to the Mall. It was behind the National Archives Building and security was checking everyone, one-by-one.

It was obvious we would not get to the Mall before Obama took the oath of office. Luckily, Miller and her friend were listening to the ceremony through earbuds connected to a radio.

When Vice President Joe Biden took the oath of office, she called out, “Joe Biden is in!”

Then Obama took the oath and she declared, “They are presenting the 44th president, Barack Obama!”

Joyce Miller, an African-American woman, started reciting Obama’s speech as she heard it from the radio.

We all gathered around her and I recorded the entire speech as she recited it.

Miller was in strong voice and reflected Obama’s tone and inflection in her voice. When he got loud, she got loud. When the crowd applauded, she would say, “Applause, applause.”

Miller would pause to hear what Obama was saying and the crowd hung on her every word — exciting and hungry for the next part of the speech.

Overhead, the sound coming from the huge speakers on the Mall reverberated on the buildings around us.

When the speech was over, Miller yelled, “Thank you. God bless you and God bless America!” The crowd cheered. There are smiles. There were tears. There was applause.

The checkpoint opened up again and folks milled toward the gate again.

Even though we weren’t on the Mall and never saw Obama, this was the story behind the story — Americans that came far and wide to be this close to the inauguration, only to be stopped by security.

They heard the words of the nation’s first African-American president through an African-American woman.

Truly a moving experience.

Ben McNeely is a reporter with the Concord/Kannapolis Independent Tribune. The Independent Tribune is a Media General publication.

WASHINGTONKennedy taken from luncheon with Obama — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ill with a brain tumor, was hospitalized Tuesday but quickly reported feeling well after suffering a seizure at a post-inauguration luncheon for President Barack Obama.

“After testing, we believe the incident was brought on by simple fatigue,” Dr. Edward Aulisi, chairman of neurosurgery at Washington Hospital Center said in a statement released by the senator’s office.

“He will remain … overnight for observation, and will be released in the morning.”

The statement said the 76-year-old senator “is awake, talking with family and friends, and feeling well.”

The statement did not disclose the tests that were performed on Kennedy, whose seizure was witnessed by several fellow senators seated with him at lunch.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told reporters he and Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, grabbed the senator as he became ill.

Added Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., “It took a lot out of him. Seizures are exhausting.”

Even so, Dodd quoted Kennedy as saying, “I’ll be OK, I’ll see you later” as he was put into an ambulance.

“The good news is he’s gonna be fine,” Dodd added.

Kennedy had appeared in good health and spirits a few hours earlier when he stepped out of the Capitol and onto the inauguration platform where Obama took the oath of office. His endorsement of the former Illinois senator had come at a pivotal point in the Democratic presidential race, and the older man campaigned energetically for the younger one.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters that Obama noticed when Kennedy became ill, and rushed over to his table.

“There was a call for silence throughout the room,” he said. “The president went over immediately. The lights went down, just to reduce the heat, I think.”

In his remarks, Obama said his prayers were with the stricken senator, his family and wife.

“He was there when the Voting Rights Act passed, along with John Lewis, who was a warrior for justice,” the newly inaugurated president said.

“And so I would be lying to you if I did not say that right now a part of me is with him. And I think that’s true for all of us,” Obama said.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, 91, also left the luncheon early, but his office and others said his health was not the reason.

Byrd “is currently in his own office … and is doing fine, though he remains very concerned about his close friend, Ted Kennedy,” said Mark Ferrell, a spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat.

Kennedy was diagnosed last May with a particularly aggressive type of brain tumor, called a malignant glioma, after suffering a seizure at his Massachusetts home. He had what his doctor described as successful surgery to remove as much as possible of the tumor in his left parietal lobe. Kennedy then underwent radiation and chemotherapy, necessary because doctors know that even if they remove all of the visible tumor, stray cells almost certainly remain.

One doctor not connected with the senator’s care said it’s not unusual for patients recovering from brain tumors to suffer seizures.

If so, “it does not necessarily mean the tumor’s growing back,” said Dr. Matthew Ewend, neurosurgery chief at the University of North Carolina, noting that Kennedy already would have been receiving MRI scans of his brain every few months to check for that possibility.

Patients recovering from a brain tumor almost always are prescribed anti-seizure drugs, and something as common as a change in schedule could cause a dip in blood levels of that medication and produce a seizure, he said. Fatigue could also cause illness.

—
Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Andrew Miga, Lolita C. Baldor and Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.