I did my best to live my life separate from the $ 160 million event yesterday.

So, here are my reluctant tidbits for history:

The crowd turnout was estimated to only about one million (instead of 4 as initially boasted), but who’s counting? Not the park service in DC

Crowd counting has long been a controversial issue. The park service says Congress ordered it to stop doing crowd counts in 1997 after the agency was accused of underestimating numbers for the 1995 Million Man March.

Of all the undercounted protests I attended, the one with the number in the title got the congress acting!

As for historical perspective, looks like all the overexposure only got Obama about 200,000 more than the most media hated president

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration drew about 500,000 people, and President Bill Clinton‘s 1993 inauguration drew about 800,000 people, according to National Park Service estimates.

yeah, better that they don’t count.

It’s probably why many of the balls were canceled due to low sales

As for the oath itself, apparently a teleprompter would have helped

Gotdamn, I don’t even remember Bush stumbling over such few words,

Rupert Murdoch in NY Post saw fit to remind New Yorkers of the Hussein thinghie (while skipping the misspeak):

Maureen Dowd crowned herself Sally Queen, downright to the quality of food

Dowd was the perfect hostess. The fanciest treats she had were pigs in a blanket — but she knew that the real treats were face time with herself and the power guests she assembled

And while those people were having a great time, the volunteers from the campaign were issued purple tickets that got them packed in a tunnel…

If only they were bailout fat cats financing some of this shinding!

Among the  bad happenings was Ted Kennedy’s Paterson nudging seizure. It was a good thing Obama kept his cool

The new President had been chatting at another table when the Kennedy incident occurred. “Looks like somebody’s down,” Obama reportedly said.

Yup. Shades of “That’s one bad pilot”

And how did the crowd receive the bestest speech evah?

As soon as the applause had died down, an African American standing man near me on the Mall said to his friend: “I thought the speech was shit.” Another woman said, correctly, that “we had heard it all before at other events”.

Oh, well, I am sure John Favreau will somehow find the inspiration for more of the same. After all, the Wall Street Journal headline is

OBAMA TO CALL FOR A NEW ERA OF RESPONSIBILITY

which, if you don’t remember

“In that sense, Obama will also revive a theme that belonged to outgoing President Bush, who in his 2000 campaign talked about ushering in a “responsibility era.”

So, Murdoch is telling the bailout crowd what I have been saying all along: “don’t worry, Jr.Jr is here”. Meanwhile, Huffpo, is debating …Michelle’s dress

Douglas Adams quote today is appropriate:

“Anyone who’s capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job”

Update

Once again, Krugman is chiming in, comparing Jr & Jr.jr’s speeches on responsiblity with Clinton’s:

We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all.

It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing, from our government or from each other. Let us all take more responsibility

And NYT has more speech critique

and Jon Stewart notices the similarities with Bush