Friday, January 13, 2017

Inauguration Day

It's been a crazy week for The Tempest. Monday, I wrote a post about Meryl Streep's Golden Globe acceptance speech. At the time I didn't think it was anything special, just one of my routine pithy takes on an event of the day. Four mornings later that post just passed 10,000 page views. I'm not sure I ever believed I would write anything that would be read by that many people. Pretty cool.

But, as Bill Clinton used to say whenever he was asked about Juanita Broderick, "Time to move on!"

A week from today, Donald Trump will be inaugurated. I will not be watching. It's not necessarily a diss of him, since I can hardly remember the last time I watched any President take the oath of office. It's just that I don't want to watch what he might do to the ceremony. We are not a monarchy. We don't have the kinds of pomp and circumstance, the gilded ceremonies of state that other nations do, especially Great Britain. We fancy ourselves too democratic, too egalitarian for such things. But the Inauguration is the closest we come. My memories of the event are mostly of Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, although the first one I ever watched was on a small black and white RCA Victor when LBJ took the oath. The thought of a guy like Trump standing in the exact same spot as those guys to take the oath jolts me a little. Maybe he will make some changes like. . .

1. Laying his left hand not on the Bible, but an autographed copy of The Art of the Deal.

2. Doing away with playing Hail to the Chief as his entrance music and replacing it with My Way.

3. Becoming the first President in history to wear a bright red baseball cap on the Inauguration stand.

I might set up an official betting line on how many times he uses the phrase, make America great again during his speech. I'm setting the over/under at five. Ditto with THIS, I can tell you.

I wonder if at any time during the proceedings he will reach for his smart phone and blast out one of his Tweets? Maybe something like this:

Just saw Nancy Pelosi at one of the balls. What a hag! So much plastic surgery. Sad.

Or...

Melanie is so much hotter than any of the cabinet wives. Winning....

Of course, there will be protesters. I assume that every Inauguration has had some, but normally the press refuses to cover them. Not this time. CNN will probably have Don Lemon doing live remotes from the Code Pink scrum. I'm sure there will be a gathering of pro-illegal immigration, gay rights demonstrators waving both Mexican, and Rainbow flags. Anderson Cooper will probably get that assignment.

So, no...I will not be watching. I'll read all about it the next day on The President's Twitter feed.

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