This week I went to the inauguration, sardined onto the Mall with 2 million other very happy people. There were some serious crowd management problems, but no one seemed to mind too much (except the people with tickets who got shut outside the gates). I was close enough that I could see figures moving around who were obviously Roberts and Obama doing their thing. The crowd was loud and joyful the whole time, but during Obama's address everyone fell silent to hear every word. Afterward some people (mostly older black women) were sobbing uncontrollably. It felt as if we'd all been released from something. Part of it was being released from the Bush administration, but there was also a sense of an older evil being lifted off us. The air smelled better afterward, the sky was bluer, and the crowd sang goodbye gleefully to Bush's departing helicopter.
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