Saw about 45 minutes of the coronation. It was so "royal," only a day-old neoconservative could have failed to get the significance of:
the trumpets heralding the approach of dignitaries;
the cannons booming;
the red drapes with gold tassels;
the chants--"O-BAM-A, O-BAM-O...." (You could almost hear "Hail, Caesar...");
even the scarfs of the senior Bushes--imperial purple!
But hey, wait a minute, they were the vanquished, weren't they?
Other observations, on color and otherwise:
Guess it's impossible to find ties in yellow or green or pink anymore. Virtually every man was wearing either blue or red. Obama actually had on a red one, presumably to signify his willingness to "reach out" to "the other side"--a willingness that makes me distinctly uneasy.
Michelle was wearing a truly ugly outfit in gold, for heaven's sake. Can't get more royal than that, I guess. Both she and the little girls had their hair straightened. (I guess the handlers decided okay, enough with the black already, at least pretend the hair ain't kinky.)
Aretha Franklin wore a hat like no other. I actually thought it would light up and twirl around.
I listened to Diane Feinstein, who was chair of the affair, as she delivered one cliche after another: "the freedom...to choose is the rock of democracy...the supremacy of the ballot, not the bullet...those who march and die to make (freedom) a reality..." and so on and boringly on.
The grim, middle-aged white men preceding Bush, Jr., could have been plucked from the cast of a gangster movie; I half expected Sonny Corleone to be among them. They all wore dark, heavy overcoats--okay, it was cold, but they looked as if they could have concealed Tommy guns under them--and it was easy to imagine them in back rooms, making deals. Or in other rooms, nodding "yes" to torturers.
I turned it off after I heard a few words of O's speech. I didn't need to listen, as I can read it--or I could if I wanted to--and it will be examined and interpreted, and damned or praised all over the papers and the Internet. It's all a script anyway and it's meaningless compared to the actual events that Obama will institute.
My only hope is that he will end the international slaughter that drenches our country in blood and guilt. There may be little reason for optimism, but it's all I have.