To nearly universal acclaim, President Barack Obama began his term as chief executive with a speech that rallied Americans to work together and move beyond "the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics."
The Chicago Sun-Times notes that, citing "gathering clouds and raging storms" before the country, Obama "called on citizens to do their part." ABC World News showed Obama saying, "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility, a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world."
Media accounts are noting the historic nature of Obama's inauguration. The AP reports it was "an extraordinary day in the life of America, people of all colors and ages waited for hours Tuesday in frigid temperatures to witness a young black man with a foreign-sounding name take command of a nation founded by slaveholders." The Baltimore Sun reports, "Perhaps not since George Washington first recited the words in 1789, or when power peacefully passed a dozen years later to a member of a rival party, Thomas Jefferson, had the mere act of taking office carried such profound significance." And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls "Tuesday's inauguration was a culmination of many things: days of warm-up and celebration, months of transition planning, almost two years of campaign drama, and -- in the very broadest sense -- decades and even centuries of racial history, trauma, conflict and progress."
McClatchy reports, "For black Americans, it was something more, the culmination of a long wait to see the Founding Fathers' promise of equality fulfilled." The CBS Evening News described the speech as "serious and sober." Later in the same broadcast, Jeff Greenfield said, "Listeners may have been disappointed if they were expecting sweeping rhetoric and high-flown metaphors. But it was clearly...Obama's choice to pitch this speech to the mood of the moment, simple and direct."
The Detroit News says it "showcased the oratorical skills that helped propel" the President "to the spot on the stage in front of the Capitol," while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports "Obama exuded confidence that he could be a president who goes down in history for the change he brings." Dana Milbank writes in his "Washington Sketch" Washington Post column, "The nation has put enormous hopes in this one man."
Author David Maraniss writes in the Washington Post that "here was history at its most sweeping and yet intimate." On its front page, the New York Times reports Obama sobered the celebration with a grim assessment of the state of a nation rocked by home foreclosures, shuttered businesses, lost jobs, costly health care, failing schools, energy dependence and the threat of climate change." In a similar story, Roll Call also says Obama "struck a sober tone, acknowledging the difficult challenges his administration will face over the next four years."
The Chicago Tribune reports "some Republican leaders somewhat reluctantly acknowledged that the new Democratic president from Chicago had delivered a 'good' -- even 'poetic' -- inaugural address to an audience estimated at well over a million on the National Mall." Roll Call reports Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), "whom Obama defeated for the presidency, had only this to say in reaction to the day's events as he headed into a bipartisan lunch with his one-time rival: 'I don't have any comment.'"
Bloomberg News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Financial Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Politico and the Washington Times also report the story.
That GOP praise came despite what media analysts are casting as sharp criticism of the outgoing Administration and Republican principles In Obama's address. As the Christian Science Monitor puts it, "the new president continued a recent tradition by thanking his predecessor for service to the nation. Despite the gratitude, ex-President Bush might not have liked the speech."
On ABC World News, George Stephanopoulos said, "It's been a very gracious transition, but this was a very, very tough speech," a "repudiation of the time of President Bush." The Wall Street Journal, for example, reports that in his speech, "Obama firmly rejected the idea that 'government is the problem,' a notion that has shaped American political debate since Ronald Reagan used those words in his own inaugural address in 1981." The Washington Post reports Obama's "aspirations are among the largest of any president since Lyndon B. Johnson and he seems undaunted by that fact."
The Los Angeles Times notes "several times," Obama "appeared to repudiate decisions by the Bush administration, including its curbing of some scientific efforts and, most dramatically, decisions that lessened constitutional freedoms in pursuit of the Iraq war and the larger fight against terrorism." On its front page, the New York Times says it was "a delicate task, with Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney sitting feet from him as Mr. Obama, only minutes into his term as president, described the false turns and the roads not taken."
USA Today says the speech "amounted to a searing indictment of the Bush presidency." The Los Angeles Times reports on its front page that "the heart of Obama's first address to the nation as its president was a rejection of the policies and values of his immediate predecessors and a somber call for the return of what he called the traditional American virtues of hard work, fair play, tolerance and sacrifice for the common good." The Minneapolis Star Tribune says the speech contained "a direct repudiation" of Bush's "national security policies," a point also made by the New York Times, which says the President "signaled a clean break from some of the Bush administration's policies on national security."
MSNBC's Chris Matthews (1/20) commented, "I was struck, and I think the world will be struck -- as the audience was here, by this line in which he alluded directly to torture, to surveillance, to all the abuses of constitutional authority that many had seen in the last eight years -- and the rectification of those before the world." In a column titled "Exit The Boy King," Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times that "thanking...Bush 'for his service to our nation,' Mr. Obama executed a high-level version of Stephen Colbert's share-the-stage smackdown of W. at the White House correspondents' dinner in 2006."
The Baltimore Sun, however, offers a starkly different analysis of the address, reporting, "It is no coincidence that almost all of his speech could have been delivered by Bush -- other than, of course, the jabs at old politics, restoring science 'to its rightful place' and rejecting the 'false choice' between 'our safety and our ideals.'" Similarly, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow said, "Whatever you think of the presidency of George W. Bush, his second inaugural speech was one I consider myself to be a critic of the former president that I was very moved by. We did hear echoes of that."
Another unique take appears in today's Chicago Tribune, which says the address "outlined a surprisingly specific list of criticisms that seemed to encompass the administrations of both presidents before him, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton."
The story was also covered by AFP, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, The Hill, The Politico, the Washington Times, Roll Call, and ABC World News.
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Media accounts of yesterday's inauguration ceremony are rather vague about the size of the audience, placing it anywhere from one to two million people. The Chicago Sun-Times reports it was "one of the largest inauguration audiences ever -- estimated at between 1 million and 2 million." The Wall Street Journal refers to "a crowd of well over one million," the Washington Post reports on "more than 1 million people" attending, and the New York Times describes "a sea of cheering people, appearing to number well over a million." Likewise, the AP reports the audience numbered "more than a million."
Bloomberg News, however, says "as many as 2 million people flocked to Washington to witness the event," and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says "almost 2 million" attended the ceremony, according to security officials." The Baltimore Sun refers to "nearly 2 million people," and "almost certainly...the largest audience ever to witness an inaugural speech." The Hill also says there were "nearly 2 million," and the Detroit News reports the crowd was "estimated at as much as 2 million people -- triple the population of the District of Columbia and larger than that of 15 states."
USA Today reports that according to DC Mayor Adrian Fenty's office, "between 1.8 million and 2 million turned out." The Washington Times estimates the crowd ar "about 2 million strong."
The Chicago Tribune, however, reports, "Though early estimates Tuesday ranged as high as 2 million, satellite images of Obaam's swearing-in suggested the actual size of the throng may have been closer to half that, according to Clark McPhail, a sociologist who has been analyzing crowds on the mall since the '60s."
The Wall Street Journal reports, "The US Senate confirmed six members of President Barack Obama's cabinet Tuesday, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary." Also confirmed were Sen. Ken Salazar as interior secretary, Peter Orszag as White House budget director, "a cabinet-level position," Arne Duncan as education secretary, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security secretary and Ret. Army Gen. Eric Shinseki "as secretary of the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs."
ABC World News notes one Republican senator "blocked Hillary Clinton from being confirmed as secretary of state, wanting more debate about the transparency of the funding of her husband's foundation." Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the AP reports, "held up" the confirmation vote "for at least a day," saying he wanted "a full and open debate and an up-or-down vote on...Clinton's nomination." The Washington Post, meanwhile, says the delay "is not likely to last long," but is "nonetheless a signal that the GOP minority in Congress will seek every opportunity to exert its will."
The Politico notes that today, "the Senate will take up" the Clinton nomination, and Majority Leader Harry Reid said the rest of the nominees will be confirmed 'soon.'" The Politico adds "other nominees, including Timothy Geithner for Treasury, Tom Daschle for Health and Human Services, Ray LaHood for Transportation and Dennis Blair for Director of National Intelligence, will get hearings before the end of the week." AFP, Washington Times and The Hill, among other news outlets, also report the story this morning.
The Washington Times reports that only "hours after taking office Tuesday," President Barack Obama "ordered military prosecutors in the Guantanamo war-crimes tribunals to ask for a 120-day halt in all pending cases."
The AP, however, reports that prosecutors are seeking "an indefinite continuance of all pending cases while President Barack Obama's administration reviews the military commissions system," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, a military defense lawyer who represents a Canadian being tried before the tribunals.
The CBS Evening News reported briefly that "a military judge adjourned the Guantanamo Bay war crimes court, at least until tomorrow."
McClatchy reports that "a military judge on Tuesday postponed next week's trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr, easing pressure on the new occupant of the White House to make a swift decision on military commissions."
The AP reports one of President Barack Obama's "first acts Tuesday was to put the brakes on all pending regulations that the Bush administration tried to push through in its waning days." The "order went out shortly after Obama was inaugurated president, in a memorandum signed by new White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel."
On its "44" blog, The Politico also notes the Emanuel "memorandum ordering all agencies and departments to stop all pending regulations until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama administration." The Washington Post reports Emanuel's memo "does not apply to last-minute Bush administration rules that have taken legal effect, including a controversial one that went into place yesterday that allows health-care workers to refuse to take part in medical procedures, including abortions, to which they object.'
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The AP reports that New York Gov. David Paterson (D) "acknowledged Tuesday that he is considering" appointing state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's seat. Paterson and Cuomo "had refused since early December to say if Cuomo is in the running, even as the latest polls show New Yorkers narrowly favor him over Caroline Kennedy." Long Island Newsday adds that Paterson "also said Cuomo had promised not to challenge him for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination next year. ... Political experts have speculated that Paterson would tap Cuomo to avoid a primary challenge."
The New York Daily News adds that Paterson's "process has left many befuddled as he has seemingly swung from one position to another in recent days. Even Tuesday, after telling reporters he's made his choice, he interviewed Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and told him he had not made up his mind, a mayoral aide said."
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports this morning that the legal battle "over filling Minnesota's vacant U.S. Senate seat begins in earnest" today when Al Franken (D) "asks a three-judge panel to dismiss" Norm Coleman's (R) "lawsuit challenging a recount that left him trailing Franken by 225 votes." Franken says "that Minnesota law and the U.S. Constitution prevent Coleman...from waging an exhaustive review of the recount," while Coleman argues that "state law permits a court challenge to press his claims of widespread voting irregularities." Roll Call adds that Franken, who attended President Obama's inauguration yesterday, but was not "seated with other Senators" at the event, "said he expects to be seated in the Senate soon. 'I think it'll be three to four weeks,' said Franken."
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Jay Leno: "Barack Obama now the 44th President of the United States. Fascinating. As you know, we've never had an African-American president. We've had a Dutch-American president. We've had an Irish-American president. We've even had an incompetent American president. But we've never...had an African-American president."
Jay Leno: "Well, did you all see Obama's speech? He said America is finally ready to lead again," to "which Bush said, 'Hey, I'm sitting here! Hello! I'm still here!'"
Conan O'Brien: "All the living ex-presidents attended the swearing-in ceremony. But did you see this? Bill Clinton got the biggest response from the crowd. Did you see that? Yeah. Yeah, apparently, thousands of women yelled, 'That's him, officer!'"
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