No you can't

In an inspiring ceremony on Washington’s National Mall earlier today, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Tomorrow, Congress will likely face a constituent service backlash from the thousands of ticketed people who got there hours early and still couldn’t get in. A life-long Democratic friend and I lucked our way into a pair of purple tickets to Obama’s inauguration, which meant great seats near the north end of the Capitol.

Or so we thought. After hours waiting out in the cold, we ended up 10 feet short of the gates when the authorities closed them (again). We stood at Louisiana Avenue and First Street, a stone’s throw from the Capitol, in the midst of a crowd of perhaps 15,000, almost all of whom held purple tickets. Beside us were dozens of elderly black women who’d waited for hours in the cold — and for their whole lives — to see this moment. Couples who’d gotten tickets from their congressmen and spent hundreds of dollars flying in from all over the country. Whether they’d been waiting since 4:00 in the morning or only showed up at 8:00, they all ended up in the same muddle.

As Obama was sworn in, we heard nothing but the milling of an angry crowd. There were no jumbotrons, no loudspeakers. A lone man called a family member on his cell phone and put the call on speakerphone so those of us nearby could hear bits and pieces of Obama’s inaugural address.

The Capitol Police closed the purple gates early, saying nothing about why, since there was apparently still plenty of space left in the section. Later, the gates reopened again inexplicably, and the authorities started letting people in through the exit. All throughout, people milled around blindly, with no instructions about where to line up, about whether they’d be let in or turned away, no communications or explanations whatsoever.

We’d gotten on the Metro before 7:30 and packed in like sardines. Parents with babies were holding them on their shoulders so they didn’t get crushed. People joked that they were looking forward to being able to breathe again. (I told them we’d be landing on the Hudson.)

By 7:45, the line to get into the purple entrance snaked all the way back to 2nd Street and through the traffic tunnel under the Mall to the entrances from I-295 and I-395. The line was six wide, and at least a mile long two hours before the gates even opened. “I shoulda brought Anna Karenina!” some guy quipped. “We’re in Maryland…or Virginia,” another said into a cell phone. “I don’t even know where we are out here anymore.”

I was glad I was there, and just as happy to watch the whole event on TiVo when I got home. But as my friend rightly pointed out, it’s one thing not to have gotten in simply because there were too many people, or because we arrived too late, and another not to have gotten in because the events weren’t planned well enough.

As he pointed out, there was no communication at all. That came as no big surprise to me, but it was undeniably embarrassing to see that Ticketmaster and Southwest Airlines can handle people more efficiently than the United States at a once-in-a-lifetime presidential inauguration.

I wish President Obama the best. But something in me kind of appreciated seeing so many of his fans getting an object lesson in government. Do any of them really think one man can solve all our foreign policy problems, bring the economy out of recession, stop climate change, and fix the whole healthcare system if the government can’t manage a crowd it’s had 6 weeks to prepare for?

(Update: For lack of a good slideshow feature, here are a few pix: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011, 012, 013, 014, 015, 016, 017, and 018.)