Small Blawg

Teabaggers Phony Photo

The teabaggers (tea baggers?) had an event on the Smithsonian Mall which police are informally estimating at 40,000-50,000 attendees; one unofficial guesstimate is 70,000. The Baggers, however, are claiming one to two million, and are circulating a photo showing the Mall completely packed with people who seem to mostly be dressed in white.

This afternoon, MSNBC and several blogs published the photo and pointed out that it lacks the Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004. All the white makes me wonder if it was one of the rallies sponsored by NOW (the National Organization for Women) about the Equal Rights Amendment or about reproductive rights — NOW often asks attendees to wear white in honor of the suffragists who won the vote for most U.S. women* in the early decades of the 20th century.

See HuffPo for more on the story, and a gander at the phony pic. PolitiFact's coverage notes the photo has construction cranes in front of the Natural History Museum, when the NHM was installing its IMAX theater. The theater opened in May, 1999, so the photo is somewhat older than that.

August established the Right's willingness to lie to reporters on a scale not seen since Joe McCarthy's day. But this... so easily checked... can only be matched by the series of phony birth certificates produced by the Birthers this summer.

*Native American women and men did not get the vote until 1924.

Joe Wilson's Disgrace

Meanwhile, Screamin' Joe Wilson says he will not apologize to the House for breaking its rules while yelling at President Obama during his health care speech to the Joint Session last Wednesday. He says he's apologized to Obama's chief of staff, and that should be enough. Reporters are not pressing him about the fact that the outburst violates the House's own rules, and violates Section 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as well. Wilson is a colonel in the reserves and is legally bound by the UCMJ to show basic respect to the Commander in Chief.

Though Obama has said the incident is over as far as he's concerned (what else could he say?), House Dems are preparing some sort of resolution of condemnation or rebuke. Though this allows Wilson to pretend he's being victimized, it's sadly needed, lest the House floor become a haven for right-wing hooligans as the August town hall meetings did.

Knowing that the speech was getting world-wide coverage, what good does Wilson imagine he was doing our national image when he insulted the President on camera? Is it more important to this slug that he get his fifteen minutes of fame, than it is for the world to see our President treated with respect and our legislators behaving with dignity?

And within 24 hours, Wilson was using this incident in a fund-raising letter, showing no remorse and continuing to publish his own falsehoods about the bill, absurd claims which have been debunked by every professional, neutral political analyst who has written about them. So much for the sincerity or truth of his mealy-mouthed "apology" to Rahm Emanuel, whom he spoke to Wednesday night in lieu of the President.

The tantrum of this no-name lout from South Carolina stepped on the night's two serious news points: Obama's refutations of the phony scare stories promulgated by the corporate-funded agitators during August; and Senator Ted Kennedy's final words to his fellow senators on the issue he worked on for fifty years.

What a pity that, by crowding Kennedy's letter out of the news, a mannerless brat such as Representative Wilson was able to undermine Senator Kennedy's final service to his country.

Without taking anything away from the reality that black citizens still face a great deal more police harassment than white citizens, I feel that the confrontation in the kitchen and on the porch of the Gates home July 17 was not so much about white v. black as it was Blue v. Everybody Else. He was dragged off in handcuffs to an afternoon in prison as extrajudicial punishment for the crime of contempt of cop, not disturbing the peace.

Obama referred to the cop "act[ing] stupidly" and was trounced for it, though it is true. Social commentator Touré protests that the Beer Summit was an unwarranted gift to Sgt. Crowley which put a cop guilty of misconduct on the same level as the injured party and the President of the United States, and that's true too — though the scene in Obama's garden was the only sensible way to try to put the story to rest, or rather, put the story to use as a model of reconciliation.

Having Joe Biden present was another example of Obama's deft and thoughtful hand. So why does everyone think that Obama spoke carelessly in his initial remark? He knew the question was coming and he chose his words knowing that they would inflame police sentiment and tromp his health care presentation — the latter no real loss, as it was the first pitch he's made which didn't make it to home plate, and deserved to fall unremarked out of the news cycle.

So far, only Margaret Carlson has suggested* that "Obama doesn't make rookie mistakes. It's like Larry Bird missing a free-throw." Obama "calibrates" all his language with precision, and this was no exception. This was the nation's first black president choosing to step away from his studied affectation of serenity on race to not only address that "part of my portfolio" but also remind his multi-colored electorate that even a President knows what every dark-skinned American is up against, every day.

In defense of Sgt. Crowley: he asked Gates to step outside simply as a pretext for arresting him on the grounds that "outside" — Gates' own porch — was a place where Gates could "disturb the public" (the possibly seven neighbors who were watching the six cops). Pretty shabby. However, there are some situations in which police responding to a false alarm follow a protocol of getting the resident outside in order to be certain they are not under duress of some sort, say from an intruder holding some other occupant hostage elsewhere in the home. Sometimes, in what seem to be false alarm cases, it is not just appropriate but important to ask the resident to come out into the open even after their tenancy is verified. Crowley's conduct works against using that as an explanation, but for what it's worth, there it is.

And for what it's worth, here it is, the full text of the now-infamous "jungle monkey" email from Boston cop Justin "I Am Not A Racist" Barrett, who repeatedly uses "ax" for "ask" and repeatedly insists that his ungrammatical screed represents better writing than that of Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham, whom he suggests—again, repeatedly—should be serving him breakfast Sunday mornings as some sort of a house slave, or maid, or waitress; it's not clear. He was so proud of this foul mess that he sent it to his entire National Guard unit. And he's not a child (chronologically, anyway); he's 36.

Before I leave this for now, I have to go back to Crowley and ask: in a radio call in which he says the lone man in the house has identified himself and is the homeowner, why does he tell the dispatcher to "keep the cars coming"? And did he say "uh, cooperative" or "uncooperative"? Gates is 5'7", slender, 58, has a hip replacement (which wasn't visible) and uses a cane (which was). This was a wealthy neighborhood in broad daylight, and Crowley already had at least a partner at the scene, and already had met with Gates and gotten his i.d. Was Crowley trying to enhance the size of his blue audience? If not, then what?

Officers breaking the law to punish "contempt of cop" are a serious problem nationwide and it's getting worse. It's not just beat-downs like Rodney King or spurious arrests like Henry Louis Gates. Tasers, promoted as a way to reduce the use of lethal force, are being misused as if they were cattle prods or canine shock collars and people are dying. I can see why Obama wouldn't want to open that discussion this week, but I hope Holder can spare a team at DOJ to start addressing the issue, not just with prosecution, but with an attempt to introduce a new ethical standard for cops on the street at every level of jurisdiction, via a strong public relations stance, official guidance, and subsidized retraining.

*Near the conclusion of Andrea Mitchell Reports shortly before 2 pm ET on CNN today. Margaret Carlson also wrote about it for Bloomberg News.

Full Statement of Henry Louis Gates
Press Conference of Sgt. Crowley (tiny excerpt of "agree to disagree" — where's the whole thing?)
No Beer for Caller
Audio of Call and Transmissions "___ cooperative" at 4:29-4:31

CNN and Faux News have been running a scare-tactic ad the past few days in which a Canadian woman stares into the camera and tells you the Canadian health system would have killed her because it wouldn't treat her "brain tumor" quickly enough.

But it turns out it wasn't a brain tumor and she knew it; it couldn't have killed her and she knew that too; and she's being financed by right-wing loons up in Canada because, surprise surprise, she's one of them.

And she can't blame that on a brain tumor, either.

Thanks to my Canadian friend pyat for the heads-up. Looks like Kos and HuffPo already have the story... how long will it take to make it to CNN and Fox, who are getting paid to spread this garbage? The New York Times covers the fakery here and here

Also, delicious... Jon Stewart nailed Lou Dobbs of CNN last night for Dobb's July 20 birther rant about Obama's birth certificate by pointing out that Kitty Pilgrim of CNN had done a several minutes debunking the whole birther business on July 17... while she was guest-hosting Dobbs' own show. Boy, when Lou takes a vacation, he really takes a vacation... from reality, and from even a tivo glimpse at his own billet.

I'm not much for quoting Scripture (well, actually, I am, now that I think about it) but Mark Sanford has made an entire public career about being a Bible-based Christian. I saw someone else publish Isaiah 59:11-14 to chide Obama about not being more forthcoming regarding the torture policies of the Bush Administration, but for me, they resonate for Sanford's situation, Verse 10 in particular.

Sanford's highly public, highly narcissistic soul-baring keeps him maundering on about how his god this and his god that, so here's a few words from the instruction manual. Skip the bits about blood and violence; he ain't that bad (though in the torture context, Dubya and Cheney are).

What Sanford is, is a man whose life is so far out of sync with his putative beliefs that it would take a harder heart than mine not to feel some pity as well as rage. Again, Verse 10.

Isaiah 59 (King James Version)

1 Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

4 None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

5 They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

6 Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

8 The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

11 We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

12 For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

Truth is surely fallen in the street; Sanford is now revealed as lying about his earlier lies, due to his confession yesterday about it being "a handful" of women with whom he crossed the fidelity line* instead of the just single-instance, totally-unique, one-and-only, true-love soulmate he claimed when The Star's reporter presented him with the hotmails at the airport as he slunk back into the country.

The Colbert Report did a lovely piece on Sanford last night from minutes 5:58-9:00 on this link. He was following up on Peggy Noonan claiming that Sanford's fall from fidelity was somehow due to "a new devilishness" which Bill Clinton loosed upon the land back in the mid-1990s. (A few days earlier, Rush Limbaugh alleged Sanford's promiscuity was Obama's fault.)

Colbert (as Rachel Maddow did last week) used the clip of Sanford self-righteously speaking about how lying is a great sin against democracy itself. Mmmhmm. Colbert then did a whole riff on the "Clinton Curse," playing clips of Clinton's persecutors mouthing platitudes about fidelity and then following it with how each of them was forced to resign or abase themselves because of their own adulteries. Featured: Bob Livingston, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Mark Sanford.

More lies on lies: South Carolina law enforcement, the head of which is appointed by, oh, golly, Mark Sanford! came out today mumbling that Mark Sanford didn't improperly spend government money to support his affair. The hell you say. He snatched a state car for the drive to the Atlanta airport and let it sit there the whole time he was gone. That alone would get a normal state employee slapped with charges which could include grand theft auto. Unanswered: the cost of the phone calls, the $7K, 8K, 9K (estimates vary) spent to add a useless Argentine leg** to a state economic development trip, and whatever was improperly spent to get him up to meet her in New York.

For cryin' out loud, Carolina: fire this guy. Any other employee who absconded with a car and didn't show up for work for five days in a row, with no word on his location, would have been terminated for cause, if not arrested. I don't care what kind of creep you have in line to take his place, Sanford needs to go.

*Sanford's claim he didn't "cross the sex line" sounds creepily reminiscent of Clinton and Chuck Robb, to whom oral sex wasn't "real" sex. Wikipedia doesn't mention it, but when aggressively questioned at a public appearance, Robb was squeezed into obliquely admitting that the nude massage included fellatio. As even marital fellatio was a crime in Virginia at the time, this "but it wasn't real sex" story had an extra-special layer of absurdity. Robb was not prosecuted, and the Washington Post let him off the hook.
**Make your own jokes here.

It's summer, and there's too much going on to spend much time blogging, though heaven knows I'd love to roll in the sex scandal muck for a while, or chastise Dana Milbank for his silly attack on Obama's willingness to take questions relayed from Iran at a press conference, or give Obama a swift kick in the briefs (legal briefs, that is) for his DOJ's vicious anti-gay support of Dubya's position on gay marriage in the Smelt case, spitefully delivered just a couple of weeks before the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Nope, no time for any of that today while the sun is shining and the flowers are blooming, bees buzzing, and oh, look out, if I'm seriouslyl hitting the birds and the bees already I'll start babbling about Mark Sanford in no time.

So instead, may I direct your attention to an extensive profile of Sarah "Slippery" Palin, presidential prospect and all-around loon? Nine thousand and eight hundred words, according to one count, by Todd S. Purdom in August's Vanity Fair, already online here:

What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

Thanks to Politico for the heads-up.

There is an advantage to recording the Sunday talk shows for later consumption.

Today, I'm finally watching the May 17 episode of State of the Union with John King on CNN. The guests are James Carville and Bill "Gambling Is Not A Vice" Bennett.

The first topic is Nancy Pelosi, and Bennett declares that she has lied, lied, lied about the CIA lying to her, yes she has, oh my, but let's not have a truth commission to find out for sure. No mention whatsoever of the people who came forward to point out that their written records and recollections show that the schedule of meetings that CIA Director Leon Panetta published are inaccurate and incomplete. Bennett claims that Panetta "slapped her back so hard. She's in bad shape on this" — when in fact, Panetta said only that he could produce Bush-era records from the time period in question, long prior to his tenure, but that Congress would have to decide if the records were accurate.

Bennett's enthusiastic venom is almost quaint in retrospect, since both pundits and the mainstream press have entirely forgotten this squabble about Pelosi now that they have Sonia Sotomayor to chew on. I'm writing on May 29. I don't remember hearing a word about this issue since Obama announced Sotomayor's selection as Justice-Designate on May 26. So the "Nancy Pelosi Lied" slander was only a nine-days-wonder for the Republicans, literally.

Carville pointed out that no one is going to be able to clear up who said what in an meeting seven years ago for which there is no transcript, and that what Pelosi knew is beside the point of whether torture is illegal.

The program moved on to Obama's speech at Notre Dame, which he had not yet given. Bennett launches into a "Obama's the most pro-abortion president ever" diatribe. Carville, however, takes an approach I hadn't heard before, and it's excellent. ( Carville argues that if Catholic protesters are serious, they'd purge the Notre Dame law and science faculties of anyone who supports Roe; transcript behind the cut. )

I have nothing but kind words for Notre Dame President John Jenkins, who endured endless vitriolage for his decision to invite the first black president of the United States and to maintain that invitation despite fury from the "purists" who wanted to ban Obama while, as Carville pointed out, not raising a single question about purging the actual teaching staff.

And that raises the unpleasant question: if the protesters aren't really about purifying Notre Dame, what were they about? The simple answer is attention and money; the infamous adulterer Randall Terry was there, trying to reclaim his lost prominence in the anti-choice movement. But as to the rank-and-file, why attack Obama and not the law school faculty? There are two possible answers to that. The most innocent is that he's a high-value target, being President. But that raises the second, less innocent, question of why the protesters are so comfortable attacking this president, far more than other pro-choice presidents such as Bill Clinton.

For that, we turn to Arizona State University, which withheld an honorary degree from Obama this year (and didn't he make them look like fools), on the grounds that the first black president and one of our youngest presidents ever hadn't accomplished much. Claims that he didn't have a sufficient "academic body of work" fail — first black president of the Harvard Law review, and ten years as a Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago. But before accusing ASU of plain old-fashioned racism, let's look at other recipients of their honorary degrees. Let's see... Doug Wilder of Virginia, the first black governor in the country, got an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address in 2004; Wilder had no academic body of work whatsoever. And back in 1992, Californian Cesar Chavez, the Chicano labor and civil rights activist, also no academic body of work. So ASU can bring itself to give a person of color an honorary degree, but not this one. What's up with that? Is he too "big" for you, ASU? Too big and too close?*

ASU itself says, on the page announcing the Obama Scholars program,

President Barack Obama represents outstanding academic achievement, thoughtfulness, a long record of service to others, inspired leadership and a commitment to building strong communities across this country. He has set new standards for what is possible in America, and encouraged people around the world to pursue their dreams.

Presented in the press as if this were a new program with new funding that ASU was giving Obama in lieu of a worthless piece of paper, in fact, it's an existing program which was merely renamed. The important change (which was presumably in the works long before the Obama insult) is that the renamed "ASU Advantage" program will grow this year from 500 students to 1600 members of the incoming Class of 2013 who start this fall. So, instead of Obama getting a piece of paper named for ASU, eleven hundred kids extra get a get a scholarship named for Obama. Not a bad trade, and when added to ASU getting so gracefully but so thoroughly schooled by Obama at the speech itself, the deal is extra-sweet.

*Political comedian and black civil rights activist Dick Gregory often said, "Down South they don't care how close you get, so long as you don't get too big; up North they don't care how big you get, so long as you don't get too close."

Remember the muddle about Gene Robinson's prayer at the inaugural concert? And the great fuss over Rick Warren's appearance at the Inaugural itself?

Short recaps: HBO resolved the omission of Robinson's prayer from the concert by agreeing to add it to all future broadcasts of the concert and to the streaming video version on their website. Presumably they'll include it on any DVD editions as well. As it is more likely people will want to watch the star-studded concert over and over than the inaugural itself (as a whole, that is), this means Robinson's prayer is likely to have the more enduring audience, though Warren's one-time worldwide audience on January 20 will always have numerical superiority.

So what about Warren's prayer? How did that go? Not too badly. He didn't attack women or gay people, which was a relief. And he also led off with a names-of-God series that included Yaweh and Issa, the name used by Moslems to refer to Jesus of Nazareth. So! A nice bit of subtle outreach there which was not lost on American Muslims, though the press seems to have missed it altogether. Not being one of the People of the Book, Warren still wasn't speaking to me, but nonetheless, he should get a plaudit for being as inclusive as his theological stance allows.

Though Warren closed with an overtly Christian prayer, one of the first lines of his invocation was a recitation of the Shema, the most important prayer in Judaism: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is One." In the following sentence, Warren invoked a line that opens all but one chapter of the Koran: "You are the compassionate and merciful one."

Warren broke into the Lord's Prayer—which begins with the words "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name"—in the last lines of his invocation but specified that he was doing it in the "name of the one who changed my life." Then he spoke Jesus's name in a handful of languages, including Arabic and Hebrew. "It was more a personal testimony than insisting that everyone accept this prayer," says Fuller's Muow. "It was as ecumenical a prayer as an evangelical could give."

The closing prayer offered by James Lowery knocked both prior preachers right out of the park, and blew away the official inaugural poet as well. The venerated civil rights figure had more lyricism in his lines than the other three put together, and closed what had been a somber ceremony on an upbeat, humorous note that was sorely needed. ( Text behind this cut. )

Good column here by Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News and World Report pointing out that the traditional inaugural prayers didn't become truly arrogant and exclusionary until Dubya's first inauguration in 2001. Gilgoff explicates the differences between "I", "we" and "us" in public prayer, and notes that the Our Father, a/k/a the Lord's Prayer, is generally heard as part of worship services and has never been used in an Inauguration before.

The swearing-in itself had a weird little bobble, and at the time, I turned to friend_x and said, "You watch, someone will say he's not officially president because of this." Sure enough, by this afternoon, CNN was reporting that there are voices on the right saying Obama was not correctly sworn in and therefore isn't president. (The linked article quotes one analyst saying, contra, that the oath isn't necessary at all.)

Chief Justice John Roberts mangled his lines, and Obama stopped in his tracks while Roberts tried (not entirely successfully) to make it right. MSNBC commentator (and Congressional Quarterly columnist) Craig Crawford, is so incensed by the fumble that he's called for Roberts' impeachment. I'd love to see him gone, but this isn't enough. I think Crawford is just teasing.

LATE EDIT JANUARY 22: To stop the caterwauling from the far Right, Obama had Roberts re-administer the oath in the Map Room of the White House yesterday afternoon. The audio is poor, the only visuals are still photos — not quite the stuff of memories which a properly-administered public oath would have been. Two other presidents had flubbed oaths, which they re-took: Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur. (More on Arthur below.)

According to AP, this is the first time a chief justice has sworn in a president who voted against his nomination to the Court. AP also notes:

The last time a chief justice swore in a president of a different party was in 1997, when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a Republican, swore in Democrat Bill Clinton for a second term. Two years later, Rehnquist would preside over Clinton's impeachment trial in the Senate, which resulted in an acquittal.

As Obama had requested in court, resisting an atheist attempt to ban the phrase, Roberts appended the question "So help you God?" to the constitutional text of the oath. As one commenter to the first linked story noted,

I don't care if he says it - what's wrong is that he will be ASKED to swear to God by a representative of the US government, which is entirely un-Constitutional.

And no, apparently George Washington didn't add this to his oath, no matter what folklore says. A heroic biographer made it up out of whole cloth in 1854. It was President Chester Arthur who began the "so help me" custom, back in 1881 (possibly influenced by the pious fabrication of 1854, which quickly became, forgive me, gospel on this topic. This despite that for over 100 years, no president appended the phrase to his oath, according to contemporaneous news reports. The media went wild over it when Arthur finally did.

Much has been said about Obama's awful choice of Rick Warren to give today's opening Inaugural prayer, the official invocation of Warren's god's blessing on Obama's first term.

So much has been said, in fact, so loudly and with so much despair, that Obama invited openly gay bishop Gene Robinson to give the opening prayer at the "We Are One" concert event at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. Robinson was to be the salve on the open wound inflicted by Warren; instead, the accidental or intentional censorship of his appearance has been salt.

HBO was to broadcast the entire event for free in return for exclusive rights to film. The problems seem to originate with HBO's understanding of "entire" and "free." First, the "free" broadcast didn't start until at least nine minutes after the event began. Those of us watching along on MSNBC or CNN could see the moment at which the HBO jumbotron screens lit up right on time—and then wait in vain for the same to show up on our television screens.

When it did show up (via Verizon at my house) a large gray rectangle in the center of the screen appeared to tell me that I was not an HBO subscriber. I could hear the event, but see nothing but a rim around the rectangle. Okay... I was able to sign up for HBO via twiddling my remote, and I was able to record the event in full at a later re-broadcast. I don't know if the gray rectangle was unique to Verizon, or if HBO inflicted it on all the "free" viewers.

But when I cancel HBO, as I will tomorrow, that is only part of why. My main complaint is that HBO did not broadcast the opening prayer by Gene Robinson. This from Cathleen Falsani, religion reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times:

Robinson was there, but where was his prayer?

HBO, which had exclusive rights to air the nearly two-hour concert, didn’t broadcast Robinson’s invocation, saying it was the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s call to keep it in the “pre-show.”

PIC spokesman Josh Earnest’s explanation: “We had always intended and planned for Rt. Rev. Robinson’s invocation to be included in the televised portion of yesterday’s program. We regret the error in executing this plan — but are gratified that hundreds of thousands of people who gathered on the mall heard his eloquent prayer for our nation that was a fitting start to our event.”

A source confirmed that highlights from the concert — including Robinson’s invocation — will be shown on jumbo screens on the Washington mall during today’s inauguration.

Not good enough. Literally hundreds of millions in the U.S., not to mention the potential billions worldwide, will hear Warren's invocation today. Barely 300,000, at most, of the two million expected in DC today will get to hear Robinson's prayer, if they are able to hear the jumbotrons at all.

UPDATE: Per Reuters, HBO now says they will add the prayer to the streaming video on their website and to future broadcasts of "We Are One."

Robinson left out people with disabilities Sunday, but President-Elect Obama didn't. Thank you, Mr. President:

...if we could just recognize ourselves in one another and bring everyone together - Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; Latino, Asian, and Native American; black and white, gay and straight, disabled and not - then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.

Transcript and video of Robinson's prayer behind the cut ( here... ) Many thanks to Sarah Pulliam of Christianity Today, who was able to capture the invocation on tape and put it up on YouTube; and to whomever transcribed it for publication in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Good News, if you look before January 20 at noon.

Obama's whistle-stop train ride to Washington has special meaning to me, as an Illinoisan myself with an acute awareness of his intent to parallel so many of Lincoln's steps. Roland Martin kept trying to point out significant accidental and purposeful coincidences today, but got bubbled over by Soledad O'Brien's own excitement during the CNN rooftop panel. (Why on earth did CNN make these folks sit on the roof of the Newseum for today's coverage, when the temperature barely hit 15°F? It's not as if they could see anything from there.)

Regardless, Martin wanted people to note that January 20, 2009, the day of the first black president's inauguration, will be the 100th anniversary of the formation of the NAACP... in response to a racial pogrom in Springfield, Illinois. Obama chose the Old State Capitol there to announce his candidacy, and to announce his choice of veep. I worked a block away for years... and Obama visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library there a few weeks after I did in August, and saw the same exhibit I went through, agonizing photographs of the havoc white Springfield wrought upon the black community, including the slaughter of an elderly cobbler for the great crime of having married a white woman over thirty years earlier.

I was holding up well despite all the poignant moments in today's coverage, until they played Ray Charles doing "America, The Beautiful" over Obama's recessional from the whistle-stop stages. That did it for me—get the kleenex. I wish Charles could have been here for this. I wish Odetta could have too, and Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King, Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, and so many others.* I hope it's true that Aretha Franklin will take Odetta's place on Inauguration Day. Although the producers started the Wilmington recessional with the first verse—the one we all know the words to—the Baltimore recessional began with the third verse, maybe even more apropos than the first in time of war:

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!

Who introduced Obama at Baltimore? That was Quincy Lucas of Delaware, who introduced Joe Biden at the Democratic Convention. She was chosen by Biden's team even though they had never met, because she's an anti-domestic violence advocate and he drafted the Violence Against Women Act, the first federal legislation to provide protection for women across state lines. Although inspired by the needs of women being subjected to domestic violence, the law itself is gender-neutral and protects men as well. Lucas' sister, Witney Rose, M.D., was murdered by James Buie, an ex-boyfriend, in 2003.

And speaking of differences between Baltimore and Philly, in Philly, Obama thanked the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia, but in Baltimore, he didn't reference Mayor Sheila Dixon at all. Though an early supporter of his and still a sitting mayor, a week ago she was indicted for theft, perjury, and misconduct for, among larger misdeeds, allegedly stealing over $3K in gift cards meant for poor kids in Baltimore public housing-even some from Toys R Us. So no mention for Dixon. Obama doesn't mention Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich if he doesn't have to, either.

*Angela Davis, who also ran for president, is still with us, but her take on Obama and his win hasn't been much elucidated. She'll be keynoting a conference at the University of New Hampshire January 29; maybe we'll hear about this then. I find it hard to care what Jesse Jackson thinks, especially after he trashed the rights of people with disabilities to have their marriages respected by signing up on the wrong side of the Terri Schiavo case in 2005.

Thank you, Chicago Tribune, for asking:

One simple matter comes down to three little words, and on them he has made up his mind: he won't shrink from using his full name when he takes the oath of office.

During the campaign, Obama's detractors would often invoke his middle name, Hussein, in an attempt to falsely paint him as a Muslim. Obama, a Christian, doesn't care.

"I think the tradition is that they use all three names, and I will follow the tradition," he said. "I'm not trying to make a statement one way or another. I'll do what everybody else does.''