Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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The Never Ending Inaugural

Rich Galen

Friday January 19, 2022

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I am writing this at 6:18 on Sunday night and I want to report to you that I am officially sick and tired of this business about a 13-year-long Inaugural Ceremony. Ok. That's an exaggeration, but not by much.

The actual event - the oath of office - is exactly 35 words long. It reads as follows:

"I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Note the Constitution does not require that the "I" be followed by a name, so the whole Barack Hussein Obama deal might never come into play.

Nevertheless, the person presenting the oath - typically the Chief Justice of the United States - says the words first and they are repeated by the oathee. Thus we are looking at something on the order of 76 (including the "state your name" and the "Barack H. Obama" business).

Let's say that the average English-speaker has a speaking rate of 100 words per minute. That's a little low - especially if you happen to be blocking traffic at the intersection of 42nd and Broadway in New York City - but let's just say.

If that is the case, then the entire swearing-in part of the Inaugural will last about 45 seconds. The other 12 years, 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 15 seconds of the Inauguration of Barack Obama are � other stuff.

Traffic in downtown Washington, DC yesterday was snarled. And when I say snarled that also accounts for the set of my mouth.

There was really no reason for it. The area around the Lincoln Memorial was completely shut down for the opening concert. Fair enough. But I was almost two miles away at 15th and L Streets and traffic was shut down tighter than the loan window at your local bank.

The big reason was the Metro cops who were directing traffic. This is always a bad thing. Sequencing of traffic lights in most cities are tested over many years or decades to move traffic as efficiently as possible.

Cops direct traffic about once every 18 months if they happen to be driving past the scene of an accident and have to get out and help.

Traffic would have moved more smoothly if they had turned off the stop lights and made it every 10-year-old SUV for itself. I would have been like I was in a Bruce Willis movie. Outa my way, Commie!

But, as it was, I sat in my 10-year-old SUV and waited for the Metro Cop to wave me through the intersection. Oh, how I sometimes pine for the days of Baghdad where traffic lights didn't exist and one-way signs and traffic lanes were mere suggestions.

To be fair, for the past two Inaugurations I have been stuck at the Presidential Inaugural Committee offices (known as the PIC for Republicans and Democrats) deep into the night so I never had to deal with mid-afternoon traffic. Democrats might have been gnashing their false teeth over the traffic attached to a GOP Inaugural as unrelentingly as I was this afternoon.

I choose to believe that was not the case. I choose to believe that the two Inaugurations of George W. Bush were like a Disney cartoon - with cute birdies and little baby Bambis leading squads of dancing squirrels and laughing kittens waving to the tens of millions of visitors to their Nation's Capital ALL OF WHOM CROSSED ON THE GREEN.

But, maybe not.

I know you thought I was being silly last week when I wrote about the bridges between Virginia and The District being shut down. It was front page news in the Washington Post. Now, we learn, that the George Washington Parkway is being closed down from the People's Republic of Alexandria all the way north to the Beltway which, according to my Mapquest is a distance of nearly 15 miles. On the Virginia side of the river.

I feel like I am in an episode of Oz on HBO and have been sentenced to administrative lockdown. All I can do is walk to Starbucks and back.

Wait. Let me take a peek at the weather forecast. Oops, never mind. The high temperature for Tuesday will be only 30 degrees.

I'll drive.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A short summary of the HBO series, Oz, and not one but TWO Mullfotos. Also a topic-appropriate Catchy Caption of the Day.

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