Obama is a rockstar

Today, I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the first African American to hold the office via various live streams (CNN.com, Yahoo.com courtesy of ABC, and the BBC.com) and was amazed at the proceedings.

Of course, the obvious moment of history-in-the-making was not lost on me, but the rockstar reception for Mr. Obama as he took his place before reciting the oath of office surprised me. I suppose I should not have been surprised, as it seems the "O-BA-MA!" chant has become almost de rigueur at his appearances.

Notwithstanding, the apparent orderliness of the crowd surprised me even more. Yes, I know the security was tight and it was COLD, but I like to think that nobody wanted to ruin the once-in-a-lifetime occasion for themselves or anyone else. I'm sure there were moments of unruliness and there may have been protestors out there somewhere; in fact, I desperately hope that if there were, the news outlets covered them, too. Just because the inauguration seems to have been the moment 'everyone' had been waiting for, it's no excuse for limiting all aspects of coverage to only the picturesque images of public inspiration.

And most of all, I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear President Obama stumble a little as he repeated Chief Justice Roberts' recitation of the words of the oath of office. Right then, Mr. Obama appeared a little excited, nervous and as perfectly human and flawed as everyone else. It heartened me to be reminded that whatever his confident exterior is at any other time, he's just a guy with a really important job, and that he needs a lot of support (in addition to much-needed and guaranteed criticsm) to perform it well. Regardless of what anyone says about his predecessor, Mr. Bush, that is also what I liked about him. Yes, I laughed at his gaffes and yes, I was indignant at his apparent arrogance, but the fact that he acknowledged and all but embraced his flaws, allowed me to have a little more compassion for the man than many of my acquaintances did.

Mr. Obama is not perfect; he is not the answer to all our problems or the savior of the U.S. and the world. He might be a rockstar, but as we all know, rockstars have problems of their own (see also Axl Rose, Metallica, Michael Jackson, Ozzy, Elton John, etc). Let's not put him on too high a pedestal, so we won't be too angry at how far he falls in our estimation and so he can't lose touch with the people he has sworn to serve.