YES WE DID

Oopsie daisies...not now, John

Obama's now President...alas!

But, uh, not without a hiccup or two.

Chief Justice John Roberts garbled administering the Oath of Office to Obama, mixing up the word "faithfully" near the beginning.

Of course he did.

I'm sure he's aware of it too...and I'd imagine probably beating himself up pretty hard. In his defense, I can appreciate how nerve-racking the moment must have been...but, uh, exactly how hard is it to administer an oath of 35 words? Part of me is left wondering if the guy assumed it was too easy and failed to rehearse it.

Still, that was quite a goof...I guess we can chuckle about it and move on.

Errr, better luck next time, John.

I'm in a cold sweat

It's less than 15 minutes before Obama takes the oath, and it's hard to describe what's going through my mind...I'm breaking into a cold sweat.

Obama was just introduced and came out to the sea of people on the mall.

What an incredible moment.

I wish these folks were here today...

It's t-minus 90 minutes...

As Barack Obama prepares to take the oath of office today as the nation's 44th President ~ and the first African-American President in our history ~ I'm thinking about a few names out there who I wish could be present for this historic occasion.

1. My grandmothers
2. Gramps
3. Michael Haugh & David Papadupolo, my two deceased fraternity brothers -- the former who helped recruit me
   
4. Obama's grandmother
5. Obama's mother
6. Gandhi
   
7. MLK (duh)
8. Jackie Robinson
9. Rosa Parks
10. The bus driver who had Rosa Parks arrested
11. Buck O'Neal
12. All deceased Negro League ballplayers
13. Curt Flood
14. Branch Rickey
    
15. The four little girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, and their families
16. The men who gave rise to the KKK...make them see the white of Obama's eyes as he gives the oath!
17. Miles Davis
18. Johnny Cash & June Carter
19. Lincoln
    
20. FDR
    
21. JFK
22. JFK's son
    
23. RFK
    
24. Lyndon Johnson
25. Louis Armstrong
    
26. Sun Ra
27. Brian Piccolo
    
28. Walter Payton
29. John Wilkes Boothe, with a front row seat after the metal detectors, a solid patdown, and a thorough cavity search
    

Of course, it's easy to imagine these folks looking from above and being present in spirit...especially those who this moment is linked to, such as Lincoln and MLK.

Obama's viewpoint

The day has finally arrived!

When I saw this photo today, I figured this was the view Obama will have today from the Capitol Building as he takes the oath to be the 44th President of the United States of America.

Am I dreaming? Is this real?

Today is a beautiful and historic day for our Nation. It's a day of brotherhood amongst countrymen, in its truest form.

Over two million folks are expected to attend today. The train lines getting into Washington are so backed up, including the platforms at the end of the line, that people are actually boarding outgoing trains just to be on them when they turn around to go back into the city...ever heard of that before?

Despite the hassles of getting into the capital city, I'm seeing lots of happy faces today. I'm one of them!

Keith's Farewell Address to Dubya

Here's Keith Olbermann's Farewell Address to Dubya...8 years in 8 minutes. I thought it was much worthier and more informative than my rant a couple days ago, so I went ahead and eliminated my post. If it's of any interest, I was probably at my most effective with my initial post to this blog last September.

I hope to stop seeing red after next Tuesday

Simply put, he has to literally leave office.

I've figured out that my venom for Dubya won't start subsiding until he's literally out of office.

You probably wonder why I seem to get so "carried away" on this site when it comes to all things Dubya-related.

Believe it or not, I speak for lots of people out there who are angry and fed up with the last 8 years...to the point where it tends to boil over.

I'm one of them...and I won't ~ I can't ~ see ANYTHING BUT RED until the son of a bitch leaves office. Part of my fury today involves the anticipation of some serious nose-thumbing from the Oval Office in Dubya's last address to the nation, which I don't plan on watching, but probably will run into nonetheless.

Once I see Obama being sworn in, and it all starts to sink in, I'm expecting the red to start fading; hopefully to be replaced by peaceful hues of blue and green...but there will be an adjustment period.

I'm sure the red will flare back up every now and then as we learn more about the goings on during the hijacked years of Dubya...but with time, hopefully it will start to fade into the annals (or anals, if you like) of history.

Cry me a f'n river...FREAK!

Soon to be impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, in a press conference today, decided to read us some poetry.

How touching.

It was also beyond the Great Unknown in terms of bizarre. REALLY BIZARRE...possibly the weirdest press conference I've ever witnessed from a politician.

The press conference was his "artful reaction" to the Illinois State House of Representatives voting in favor of articles of impeachment with respect to a mounting case of evidence that he tried to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat following the election last Nov. 4.

The guy was all over the map. He lined up a group of citizens (apparently from Illinios and affected by health care issues - I don't want to imagine how that group was assembled) and pontificated about health care pitfalls on the part of the State House.

I even heard him mutter the word "pap smear" in the press conference. Uhh, yeah.

Some of the talking heads think he's a political mastermind at messing with the political landscape right now...personally, I think he's simply delusional.

I don't believe this fella is working with a full deck. In any event, it should be obvious that the sooner this character is kicked out of office, the better.

An Era of Heartless, Revolting Dishonesty

I picked this up on Dec. 31 in a coffee house in Ketchum, Idaho from the Idaho Mountain Express...and thought it was worth spreading the word.

Nothing like starting out the New Year with a bang. Right?

An era of heartless, revolting dishonesty

---

By PAT MURPHY

Bernard Madoff, the New Yorker who fleeced investors of $50 billion with heartless precision, and Vice President Dick Cheney, a principal architect of America’s ruin as an envied world leader and engineer of calculated abuse of power, share the same amoral lack of ethics except for one distinguishing fact.

Madoff forlornly admits his revolting dishonesty and theft of investments from philanthropists, friends, foundations and celebrities. However, right up to the last days of his dark reign, Cheney not only refuses to admit his deceit, but boasts that kidnapping and torture of terror suspects, wiretapping Americans, ignoring Congress, lying to the public, launching a war on fraudulent grounds, alienating overseas allies, pandering to loony religious agendas and legislating for the wealthy were collectively beneficial to Americans.

Loyalists of George W. Bush and Cheney will protest. However, a reasonable case can be made that the Bush-Cheney years were golden for corrupt public conduct.

Touted as one of Wall Street’s “most respected” financiers, Madoff claimed in his business motto an “unblemished record of value, fair-dealing and high ethical standards.” That phony façade led to perhaps the largest fraud in history.

Likewise, President Bush began his presidency with a lie—that he was a “unifier, not a divider.” No president in modern history has so divided a nation, especially favoring the wealthy and those placing self above principle.

Without Bush-Cheney orders to government regulators to back off, Wall Street couldn’t have leeched fortunes from hapless investors. In the end, taxpayer bailouts were needed to remedy reckless Bush-Cheney policies.

Government whistleblowers were silenced while abuses thrived in federal programs. Lawless wiretaps were encouraged. Fraud of private contractors in Iraq was ignored. Agency officials were ordered to not cooperate with Congress.

Of course, gullible consumers falling for too-good-to-be-true deals greased the Wall Street collapse, and spineless congressional leaders—notably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—encouraged Bush-Cheney malfeasance by promising no impeachment for criminal conduct.

My opinion is that George W. Bush, coming off years of alcoholism and business failures, truly was little more than a willing puppet in search of success for the Machiavellian personality of Vice President Cheney. Bush’s rote revealed a shallow man reciting a rehearsed script.

The sum of the Bush-Cheney years undeniably meets impeachment requirements of the U.S. Constitution’s Article II Section 4—for “high crimes and other misdemeanors.”

Is it possible that a nation that cherishes its heritage of law will blithely allow a lawless president and vice president to simply walk away unscathed from their years of criminal conduct?