The Inauguration's Real Message

Official Inaugural Photo

Second Inaugural Fanfare after the Fact 

Barack Obama will take the oath of office on Sunday in a private ceremony to fulfill the Constitutional requirements for the January 20th date.  Funny thing--it will then be restaged on the Capital steps with the 21 gun salute and full fanfare. 

So he's already sworn in as President--but we have to act this drama out?  You bet!  And for the same reason that Lyndon Johnson was sworn in after the Kennedy assassination. He was already President upon the death of the President.  The Vice President's oath conveys to the Presidency automatically.  But Johnson's was done aboard Air Force One to demonstrate that the office had in fact been conveyed--and done so with poor Jackie standing there as if to acknowledge her husband's death--with blood stains on her dress.  The greatest drama in history takes place with the Presidential Oath--with no revolution,a the office and mantra of our nation passes on. 

Lincoln's Second Inaugural

It is said that the most profound Second Inaugural Address came from Lincoln.  The Civil War had ended and he called a nation to bind up its wounds.

About a month later Lincoln would be dead. Some said his dream died with him--"charity for all."  But his dream of the Union did pass on with his death to his successor to the President we inaugurate today.  

 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.