Let the future begin
Many thanks to the team at Backwards Bush for keeping the rest of the world up to date. If we didn’t have an end of the tunnel, our level of collective depression could have allowed things to get really ugly. I’m going to do my part by sharing this screen capture with the rest of you.
There’s a need to make the future our own, so I’m sharing a live feed with others in the office building. We can’t all be in the National Mall, in communion with one million/two million/four million others. If there must be a miracle today, it had better not have bread and fishcakes on the menu. Lunch with the news as background noise. Although the TV image precludes reading lips, here’s what was (probably) said, with the red velvet bible of Abe (the American one, not the OT fellow):
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Short, sweet, to the point, succinct, concise, terse. Almost too short to satisfy. After all, the ceremonies surrounding that sentence are rumoured to cost $160 million. Somewhere there must be a record of the “other guy” swearing something similar on two occasions, but then again, it might have been almost anything (else). Maybe George W. thought the word “execute” meant something completely different.
The installation of a Queen/Pope/American president require Great Ceremony. Everything after that will be mundane, so enjoy the show while we’ve got it. Miracles are only reported, rarely witnessed, and there’s a lot of healing needed after eight years of dragging the donkey around in the wilderness.
