Themes of progress mark symbolic inauguration

Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the nation’s first black president Tuesday, summoning a vast crowd and a watching nation to the task of reviving a country in crisis.

“We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America,” Obama told a massive gathering of spectators that stretched from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.

On the day of his historic ascent, Obama made only glancing references to the racial barrier that had fallen with his election.

Instead, in an 181‚Ñ2-minute speech notable for its somber tone as much as its soaring rhetoric, he outlined the challenges of what he called “this winter of our hardship”: a collapsing economy, wars on two fronts, a lack of confidence in government and enemies eager to destroy the American way of life.

The inauguration of the 44th president, who made “hope” and “change” the bywords of his improbable campaign, took place amid a building air of anticipation in Washington. Before dawn, more than 1 million visitors began streaming into the city to bear witness to the event. Foreign capitals paused as video of the ceremony was beamed around the world. Images of the crowd were even captured via satellite.

Obama was accompanied to the West Front of the Capitol by President George W. Bush. At 12:04 p.m., the man who had served not even a full term in the U.S. Senate was sworn in as the nation’s commander in chief by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Obama took the oath by stating his full given name, which he said opponents once used to try to set him apart from mainstream America.

It was the first time Roberts administered the oath — and the first time any chief justice had sworn in a president who voted against his confirmation — and both men stumbled over the words. But the sight of the two youthful leaders — Roberts, 53, the second-youngest chief justice, and Obama, 47, the fourth-youngest man elected president — underscored the theme of generational change.

So did the presence of Michelle Obama, 45, and the couple’s two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, dressed in candy-colored tones of blue and pink.

Continuity was marked by the swearing-in of former senator Joe Biden of Delaware, 66, as vice president, the oath administered by 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens.

Obama laid his hand on the burgundy velvet-covered Bible that Abraham Lincoln used for his inauguration in 1861, and history again trembled. The chief justice that day was Marylander Roger B. Taney, who wrote the Dred Scott decision that said blacks could never be citizens. The Constitution, he said, recognized blacks as “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations.”

In his address, Obama struck an especially stern note on the country’s economic distress, saying there had been a “collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age,” leading to dire declines in the housing and job markets, the education system and health care.

He called for “a new era of responsibility,” but devoted even more attention to a nation that has seen its collective morale shaken by wars abroad and an economic downturn at home.

“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many,” Obama said. “They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.”