tuesday, Tuesday, TUESDAYYYYYYY

Tuesday happens to be one of my normal off-days so I was home to watch the inauguration of President Obama live.

It was a mixed bag for me, mainly because I unfortunately wasn’t alone and had to endure periodic sideline Republican commentary of the “I hope we don’t become a socialist country” variety. What made this a tad surreal was the fact that it was coming from a person that actually voted for him.

But the early portion of the event, prior to the big speech, consisted of a lot of arriving and walking, most of which I watched alone. I marveled at how spry and energetic Jimmy Carter was in comparison To George HW Bush, whose walk was more of a sideways shuffle as he leaned on a cane with one hand and George Washington with the other…hmm? BARBARA???

Damn!

Anyway, The Clintons arrived in all their resplendent glory, appearing to be much more into each other now than they were when he was President. They were met with a groundswell of enthusiastic applause in contrast to George W, whose arrival registered a few clicks on the old applause-o-meter. Dick Cheney arrived in a wheelchair with a black hat, looking like an X-Files villain. Reportedly his back injury came from his insistence on packing some of his boxes himself.

Hmmmmmmm. I wonder what was in them. Halliburton paperwork, perhaps? A list of profiteering contacts for his post-vice-presidency? Or maybe the names and ages of all the children whose blood and organs he feasted upon to remain alive.

Good thing I’m not biased or I could really come off hostile.

When the president-elect arrived, the look on his face was truly something to behold. It was obvious he was fighting back tears as he walked out to thunderous applause. His wife, the big-boned Michelle, clip-clopped her way down the aisle as if she were about to stomp Tokyo into pieces. What is it about this woman that makes even the most elegant dresses look clunky and ill fitted on her? Honestly, I haven’t been this turned off by a First Lady since George Washington, who I was recently informed was actually Barbara Bush!

I’m going to go on record here as saying Urethra Franklin was a bad choice to sing “God Save the Queen,” er, I mean, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” First, she looked like a stuffed sausage and that Aunt Jemima rag on her head made her look like a X-mas treetop. She never had the greatest voice in R&B history but whatever voice she had is long gone in an avalanche of grease-burgers and milkshakes. Even her emphasis’ were off, resulting in unintentionally comical pronunciations such as, “My CUNT…ree ‘tis of thee.”

Fortunately, “Sister ‘Re” was the only blight on an otherwise dignified and somber affair. I didn’t miss the irony that Franklin’s caterwauling preceded Joe Biden’s swearing in while Yo-Yo Ma’s beautiful violin playing preceded Obama’s. I bet you did, though.

Through it all, I kept hearing this irritating buzzing noise. I grabbed a magazine and swatted the air with it, only to realize it was the sound of EFB crying out of fear for the future. You’d think throwing an iron at her would have hushed her up some, but she just kept right on with the waterworks, a pack of ice on her cheek. Then somebody said something about how bad they felt for Dubya because no other president had ever dealt with blah blah blah and he inherited a recession and didn’t have time to blah blah blah…

It was at this point that I pointed out Roosevelt dealt with an attack on U.S. soil and that Dubya had 9 months before the attacks to devote himself to running the country in-between a record amount of vacations and prior warning of an impending attack.

Now able to again focus on the inauguration, I watched with a lump in my throat as Barrack Obama ascended the podium and took the oath of orifice. In a moment that neo-cons will surely seize upon as a chink in the armor of the new president, a flub occurred during the oath. And even though it’s already been verified that the Chief Justice rearranged the words causing Obama to kindly lean forward and smile as if to say, “Are ya sure?” some Repubs are already trying to make it look like he didn’t know how to recite it correctly.

For me, the final moment of the oath, when Obama repeated the, “So help me God” line and the chief Justice said, “Congratulations, Mr. President” was the true goosebump inducer. I lumped up. I felt proud but I also felt relieved. Since Howard the Duck will never get elected, my dreams of an animal kingdom presidency are dead. Barrack Obama will have to do.

He has a lot of work to do to repair all the damage caused by the renegade previous administration. I don’t envy him. But I sure enjoyed watching him escort Dubya to his chopper for one final Nixonian tour of the nation’s capital before riding off into the sunset. According to reports, he received lots of jeers and many were heard chanting, “Hey Hey Goodbye.” At first I thought that was just me, but apparently not. I guess other people have heard the song, too…including the former president now! Eh? Eh?

So now we again have an intelligent man in the White House who is, at least on the surface, responsive to the needs of the people. Whether or not he is a success, whether or not he does what he promised, his election to the office of President should remind those of us who are not encumbered by crippling prejudice and partisanship that we are indeed one country united under a banner of obnoxious self-entitlement! AMEN!!!!


Postscript:
SOME IDIOTIC REACTIONS BY REPUBLICANS TO THE DAY’S EVENTS:

I truly believe this country needs more than one viewpoint. But sometimes I really wish conservatives would start their own country, name it “Assholica” and vanish from these shores forever. Take, for instance, the geriatric know-it-all who works under EFB. A historian by degree and a conservative by choice, this fossil found the inaugural address lackluster and “pitiful.” From what I could ascertain, this was mainly due to the fact that Obama didn’t say we’re going to continue blowing up shit and killing brown people in the name of freedom.

Also, one of my fellow writers workshoppers, a self-avowed “conservative Republican,” wrote three Myspace bulletins, one of which referred to Obama as already the worst president ever because of the oath flub. He also wrote a bulletin demanding his check. But the best was the third one in which he vented like an angry child because he’d apparently received some angry responses. I wrote and asked him what he expected. If that wasn’t the point, then he should have shut the fuck up. Even EFB wrote to him and said, “We did it to Clinton.” Such progress! In seven more years she’ll be suitable for mixed company.

And this just in: Because of the flubs during the oath, some Fox "News" pundits were speculating as to whether or not Barrack Obama really is president now. The hilarity and desperation have begun!