President Barack Obama's Inauguration cost more than $170 million. About $45 million of that went to parties and post-inaugural festivities, more than Clinton and Bush spent on their swearing-in bashes.

 

Most of that $45 million came from corporate sponsors, including some banks enjoying bail out monies, according to ABC News. I had forgotten about this profligate waste of cash until an astute reader, checking in after the Calhoun brouhaha last week, wondered why I congratulated Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for canceling his parties and criticized CT Gov. M. Jodi Rell in 2007 for not, but failed to dis Obama's outlandish spending in 2009. Well, here goes.

 

To contrast the image of the homeless man, here an ad from Best Buy, a wealthy corporation. This Minnesota electronics retailer rented out the hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution on 18th and Virginia down by the Mall.

 

I'm not sure what Best Buy paid for the Hall, but during the 2008 election cycle, Best Buy's PAC spent $86,000 or so, according to OpenSecrets.org. Best Buy gave $59,500 to federal candidates, split almost down the middle, 54 percent to Republicans, 46 to Democrats. Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman seems to have received most of Best Buy's largesse.

 

These other two homeless men, right near Best Buy's inaugural open house on 18th Street, weren't so lucky.

 

Sure, there were hundreds of vendors selling tchotchke and inaugural schlock. But the worst of it was the Pepsi bookbags and billboards. With a little bit of graphic design flair, Pepsi managed to make its logo look a little like Obama's red, white and blue campaign "O."

 

Story: But Obama staffers drink Coke...

America's destiny, since its first days, has been certain, indubitably wrapped in notions of divinely-blessed liberty, self-determination, expansion, and the republican form of democracy.

 

President Obama refused to discard the concept of the Christian godhead, but with a little-noticed word, he tossed Manifest Destiny to the wind. "God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny," Obama said in his inaugural address.

 

What does an uncertain destiny for America mean? First, what is destiny? In the modern cultural context, it is the Force preordaining Luke Skywalker’s being chosen for the purpose of challenging and defeating Darth Vader, overcoming the evil Empire.

 

Destiny as a word traces its roots to the Latin "destinare" – to establish, to determine. The Old French turned it into destinee, and the Middle English, around 1300, started shaping its current usage.

 

The Random House Unabridged defines it best:

1. something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune.
2. the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events.
3. the power or agency that determines the course of events.
4. (initial capital letter) this power personified or represented as a goddess.

For "that which is inevitable," synonyms include fate, fortune, kismet, lot, and predestination. These heady words seem to indicate that the future of the planet and billions of people seemingly rides upon the workings of the Constitution and its peoples.

 

This view of America's preordainded place in terrestrial affairs began with George Washington's first inaugural address in 1789.

 

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people," Washington said.

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When President Obama went to sleep late Tuesday night, January 20, 2009, I bet it bugged him that he goofed the oath of office. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. blundered his part, too. Obama likely comforted himself by thinking that he is merely human, and prone to mistakes.

 

At first, when my frozen ears heard it echo from the loudspeakers across the mall in Washington, D.C., I thought "No, they couldn't have." I asked some of the millions of people surrounding me – did Roberts and Obama just goof up the oath of office?

 

No one else seemed to catch it. Maybe that's evidence that you can fool most of the people. When I finally arrived home at 2 a.m. Wednesday, January 21, I scanned online, and indeed, other journos caught it. Maybe that's evidence as to why we need journalists – they are trained, paid observers.

 

The mishap on the oath of office, combined with the fact that Obama needed to have been sworn in by noon according to law, but didn't take to oath until shortly after noon worried me for a moment that some on the right would attack his presidency for that.

 

Yet the literal flag waving and the cheer that erupted from the millions on the mall after Roberts said "Congratulations, Mr. President" made me weep tears of joy. The nightmare of the last eight years is over.

 

The crowd froze their patooties off to secure his position as leader, and insure the triumph of the ballot over the bullet, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein noted in her inaugural introductions.

 

Four years ago, on a similarly cold January day in DC, I determined that come hell or highwater, I wasn't missing the 2009 inaugural, whether it was a Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Independent or Barking Spider who would take the oath of office.

 

Tuesday's inaugural reminded me on some levels of the three previous inaugurals I have attended – Clinton's in 1993, and George W. Bush's in 2001 and 2005. Yet Oabam’s carried more than all three of those combined, and I'm not just talking crowd size.

The rest of the Report from Washington, D.C. ...