The 56th Presidential Inauguration

One of the great things about going to school in Washington, DC is the easy access that we have to events of great consequence. One such event, regardless of my feelings about it, was Tuesday's inaugural ceremonies. If you check my Facebook page, you can see the pictures we took of our space in

I'll spare a play by play of the day (if you really want to, you can check out my Twitter feed at @senrabsemaj, which lasted until my hands got too cold to type), but I wanted to comment on some basic conclusions which I drew from the day:

1. There are no words to describe the transfer of power from one man to another

As someone who actively campaigned against him, the ceremony inaugurating President Obama affected me in a way I would have never imagined. When President Bush took the stage (as the disgusting and classless crowd booed him), it wasn't surprising to hear the President's Own Marine Band play Hail to the Chief. What caught me off guard, however, was how they played it after Obama took the oath. In that moment, what I had been avoiding since November became real. Barack Obama became President of the United States.

2. An interesting look into the politics of crowds

The Wall Street Journal wrote a great piece in late October about the politics surrounding the crowds at Obama's campaign rallies:

America is a different land, for me exceptional in all the ways that matter. In recent days, those vast Obama crowds, though, have recalled for me the politics of charisma that wrecked Arab and Muslim societies. A leader does not have to say much, or be much. The crowd is left to its most powerful possession -- its imagination.

From Elias Canetti again: "But the crowd, as such, disintegrates. It has a presentiment of this and fears it. . . . Only the growth of the crowd prevents those who belong to it from creeping back under their private burdens."

Reading those words last October, I had never been to an Obama rally, and had never experienced first-hand the cult of personality surrounding him. As of now, with an updated headcount of 1.8 million in attendance, I am confident in saying that I witnessed his ultimate rally, and came to similar conclusions.

A scene I won't soon forget at Sunday's concert that is helpful in defining what I witnessed on a broad scale: a woman was literally singing a hymn to Obama. Looking back, it will be the single most memorable moment of my inauguration experience. Obama is obviously and thankfully not the Messiah (in fact, I've heard more of the opposite). But, despite its incredulity, it and two million people chanting his name on the National Mall paralleled something the Journal pointed out--at a certain point in a crowd, rationality exits and is replaced by imagination.

3. Washington is damned cold in January.

JB