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The Associated Press
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The Associated Press
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The Associated PressWASHINGTON — Barack Obama has taken the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States.
The National Mall pulsed with celebration and history today as a vast, excited crowd bore witness to a transfer of power like none other.
Energized by Barack Obama's moment, hundreds of thousands of people, likely to end up at more than 1 million, clogged the scene, cheering the dignitaries as they filed onto the inaugural stand at the Capitol. Obama walked quietly and with the merest stirring of a smile through the halls to his position on the stand and his place in history as the first black president.The crowd erupted in jubilation as he strode out.Trumpets blared. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, the latter walking haltingly with a cane, embraced.
Enduring below-freezing temperatures for hours, people streamed from subway stations and thronged past parked buses, emergency vehicles and street vendors to Pennsylvania Avenue and the National Mall for the inauguration. Ticket holders approaching the inaugural site filed through security sweeps in lines coiled like cinnamon rolls.
The shattering of racial barriers with the inauguration of the first black president lent a deeply personal dimension for many in the crowd as well as a historical landmark for all.
"I've been real emotional all morning thinking about my grandmother and the heroes whose shoulders we stand on," said Lyshundria Houston, 34, here from Memphis, Tenn., after more than 20 hours of travel. Houston, who is black, said: "They'd be so proud."
11:15 a.m.
President George W. Bush welcomed President-elect Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday with a few hearty pats on the arm, a symbolic gesture to the transfer of power soon to take place.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, walked up the steps of the North Portico and exchanged handshakes, smiles and pecks on the cheeks with the outgoing president and first lady Laura Bush.
After posing for a photograph, the foursome went inside to have coffee in the Blue Room with Vice President-elect Joe Biden, his wife, Jill, and leaders of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.
Keeping with a White House ritual, Bush left a note for Obama in his desk in the Oval Office, wishing him well as he takes the reins of power.
"I won't provide any details, but the theme is similar to what he's said since election night about the fabulous new chapter President-elect Obama is about to start, and that he wishes him the very best," outgoing White House press secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday.
She said the two-term Republican incumbent wrote the message to his Democratic successor on Monday and left it in the top drawer of his desk, which was crafted from timbers from the H.M.S. Resolute and given to the U.S. by Great Britain in 1879.
Bush was in the office before 7 a.m. EST. He spoke on the phone with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, former White House chief of staff Andy Card and T.D. Jakes, the pastor of a megachurch in Dallas who will preach at a private church service that Obama is attending before the Inauguration.
"He's good," Perino said of the president's mood. "He's the president of the United States, the way he always is. He hasn't changed. He gave me a big kiss on the forehead."
She said Bush took one last stroll around the south grounds of the White House and would spend the rest of his final morning there with his wife, their daughters, Barbara and Jenna; and his father and mother, former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush.
During his last moments at the White House, former President Ronald Reagan scribbled a note for his successor on a notepad with a turkey insignia that said, "Don't let the turkeys get you down." He, too, slipped the note in the presidential...
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