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How would you rate Barack Obama's inauguration speech?

When Toronto bookstore owner Itah Sadu decided she was going to attend Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington, she asked her friends if they wanted to come. So many said yes she ended up chartering a bus. Their inauguration-bound vehicle seats 35, and will be full when it leaves Yorkdale Mall on Monday. Ms. Sadu, 47, hasn't planned any entertainment for the 10-hour trip, so as not to interrupt spontaneous expressions of inaugural glee. "A number of the people that I'm going with are such enthusiastic people that they'll just burst into song," she said.

The same can't be said of the Reverend Joseph E. Lowery, he ended his speech by taking the post-racial society and shoving it up the backside of white America. “We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right,” --Reverend Lowery At the beginning of the primary season, the African-American community was supporting Hillary Clinton. It was the WHITE community that made Barack Obama...

The New Jersey State Police have stopped a car on the N.J. Turnpike and are sending a bomb squad to investigate a report of a young man carrying an explosive device to the inauguration in Washington, D.C. The police investigation on the New Jersey Turnpike in Runnemede has closed a 25-mile stretch of the highway. State police pulled over the vehicle by Interchange 3 in South Jersey at 6:30 p.m. The investigation has grown, and the turnpike is now shut down southbound at Interchange 4 and Northbound at Interchange 1. The stretch of roadway runs between Mount Laurel Township and...

As I told you the other day … Obama is having some problems delivering on his promise to mend fences with Iran, and our allies. Let the festivities continue! (pics included)

Larry Kudlow, "Obama Inauguration Speech Received one hell of a Bronx Cheer from Wall Street!" Background, Dow Drops below 8000 level in reaction to what wasn't said and the undercurrent of a threat to nationalize banks in what was said. "Shared Sacrifice"...... Larry said further, "..the verdict is in, this speech will go down in history as one of the worst Inauguration Speeches in History."

<p>Doctors are blaming fatigue for the seizure that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ill with a brain tumor, suffered during a post-inauguration luncheon for President Barack Obama.</p> <p>Dr. Edward Aulisi, Washington Hospital Center's neurosurgery chairman, says Kennedy is awake, talking with family and friends and feeling well.</p>

No, those aren’t giant ants swarming around the Washington Monument all the way up to the U.S. Capitol Building. This is the first satellite image of the inauguration taken at 11:19 AM EST today by the GeoEye-1 satellite. This is the same satellite that supplies Google with images for Google Maps and Google Earth, so we may see this image show up there one day as well. All those clumps of people in between the Washington Monument and the Capitol are clustered around Jumbotron screens. The image was taken from 423 miles in space and shows objects as small as...

Some schoolchildren stood and recited the oath along with the new president. Others shouted "Amen" at the end of the invocation. But perhaps no school in the country celebrated the historic inauguration of the nation's 44th president with more enthusiasm than the hundreds of students at the newly renamed Barack Obama Elementary School in Hempstead, Long Island. "I was just speechless. I don't even have the words to explain the feelings," said Principal Jean Bligen, who won tickets to the inauguration in a lottery, but decided the only place she wanted to be Tuesday was with her students. "It was...

The first day of the Obama Administration didn't go very smoothly. One hopes this isn't some sort of bad omen. First, Chief Justice Roberts flubbed the Oath of Office. More . . .

Sitting in a Washington bar with the Morning Joe crew on MSNBC Tuesday morning, former NBC anchor grew emotional remembering the 1960s. "I get very emotional. It has been hard for me to walk through the streets. And I think that the day is going to be very emotional." Brokaw even grew bold enough to tell the "bigots and rednecks" he met in the Sixties "when we were evolving as a country" to suffer through the Obama inauguration: "Take this. You know?" The Morning Joe crew was discussing how Barack Obama was so different than past administrations in their lack...

The nation, from kindergarten classes through retirees fearful of their golden years on the federal dole and many with their hand out in between, is clearly transfixed on the prospect of “making history” in the 2008 election on this special inauguration day. Oh, how we love making history, so let me count the ways... # America elected its first 1/16th African president... # The most unqualified man to ever seek the Oval Office, won... # It took only hours after the election for “change” to become a third Clinton administration... # 66 million Americans didn’t care about his blank résumé,...

"When WHITE stands up for all things right"

When Barack Obama steps up to the podium to deliver his inaugural address, one man standing anonymously in the crowd will be paying especially close attention. With his cropped hair, five o'clock shadow and boyish face, he might look out of place among the dignitaries, though as co-author of the speech this man has more claim than most to be a witness to this moment of history. Jon Favreau, 27, is, as Obama himself puts it, the president's mind reader. He is the youngest chief speechwriter on record in the White House, and, despite such youth, was at the centre...

WASHINGTON – More than 1 million people crammed onto the National Mall and along the inauguration parade route Tuesday to celebrate the swearing-in of the nation's first black president in what was one of the largest-ever gatherings in the nation's capital. The Associated Press estimate is based on crowd photographs and comparisons with past events.

CNN correspondent Zain Verjee, in a report posted on CNN.com on January 17, likened the expected large crowds for the inauguration of Barack Obama to the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca: “The coming political pilgrimage to Washington is similar to another grand event in both size and preparation -- the Hajj, the most important religious pilgrimage in the Muslim world.” Verjee has personal experience of the Hajj, as she belongs to the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam. She filed a web log for CNN of her experience on the pilgrimage in 2005. During her report, she emphasized how...

Here is video of Pastor Rick Warren delivering a prayer to begin the Inauguration Ceremony for President Barack Obama today, January 20, 2009. Warren's prayer was heartfelt, and hit all the right notes. He was clear and bold to end his prayer "in the name of the One who changed my life -- Yeshua, Isa, Jesus." Warren used both the Hebrew and Arabic names for Jesus in closing his prayer. Warren was a totally class act under a great deal of pressure! Obama was wise to choose him. . . . . (watch video)

<p>You know things have changed in Washington when Code Pink gets seats up front at the inauguration.</p> <p>Medea Benjamin, the group's founder, and Desiree Fairooz, one of the group's most visible members, are in Section 10, about 100 feet from the stage.</p>

Former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton arrive at the inauguration ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. U.S. President George W. Bush leans in to kiss Hillary Clinton as her husband former U.S. president Bill Clinton (R) looks on during the inauguration ceremony.