Optimism, oratory carry day; challenges are immense

WASHINGTON – After the familiar salutation to “my fellow citizens” and a polite thank-you to the man he replaced, President Obama got right to the point.

“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood,” he said.

It was an inaugural address that laid out his economic challenges with cold-eyed realism. But his remedies – equal parts hope and policy agenda – face a slew of political and practical hurdles. And he offered no specifics to back up his promise to improve America’s standing in the world and end a war that he opposed.

Overall, Obama faces not only new troubles but also intractable foreign and domestic problems that have burdened more than one administration before him.

He promised the world that “we are ready to lead once more,” a subtle rebuke of Bush administration policies in war and foreign affairs that candidate Obama had called narrow, highhanded or dangerous. Americans, he said, understood that their nation is exceptional more for its purpose than its power.

“Our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint,” Obama said.

The words were aimed at ears overseas that never adjusted to Bush’s Texas swagger. Fairly or not, to much of the rest of the world Bush was the cowboy who rode roughshod over niceties such as international treaties while imposing American rubrics of national security and lifestyle.

“To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” Obama pledged.

He followed with an apparent reference to his earlier promises to talk with tyrants or autocrats whom Bush shunned, although he did not name them.

“We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,” Obama said.

Obama would gain international good will if he offers Iran’s clerical leadership a clearer path to more normal relations, including the possibility of presidential-level discussions. But it is not clear – as Bush learned – that Iran is willing to be bought out of an accelerated nuclear program at any price, or that Obama could do much about Iranian support for terror groups.

Obama named names when it came to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was no more specific about tactics.

He repeated his campaign pledge to leave Iraq responsibly and “forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.”

Withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq is a huge logistical challenge but commanders say it can be done on the 16-month timeline Obama wants. If violence spikes again, Obama will have to decide whether to change course.

Obama calls the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a mistake and has promised to refocus on the Afghan war.

Even the planned doubling of U.S. forces to about 60,000 in Afghanistan isn’t likely to have a major effect on an entrenched insurgency in a huge country – slightly smaller than Texas.

Obama left no doubt about the urgency of his domestic challenges – the lost jobs, the foreclosures, the shuttered businesses, as well as the weaknesses in an expensive health care system and in the nation’s schools. “They will not be met easily or in a short span of time,” he said.

Obama has already begun to wrestle with the economic crisis. He won congressional release of the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue fund with the promise to reduce foreclosures and to make loans more available to consumers and small businesses. And he is pushing through Congress an economic stimulus package that already stands at more than $825 billion in spending and tax cuts.

In a sweeping passage in his speech, he said:

“The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.”

In another jab at Bush, he promised to “restore science to its rightful place.” And he said he would “wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.

“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.”

“And all this we will do,” he declared.

It was a bold promise complicated by his need to keep things from getting worse before he can devote himself to making them better.

The government, for instance, already has spent nearly $350 billion on the financial sector, and the credit markets for the most part remain clogged. And questions have emerged over whether the new stimulus plan is too big or too small, or whether its massive spending will make its way into the economy in time to help it rebound.

The markets gave Obama no quarter. Financial stocks fell dramatically Tuesday, leading a steep drop on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones industrials down 332 points.

Obama’s team has declared that the economic crisis presents the new administration with an opportunity. To that end, his economic recovery plan embraces key pieces of his broader agenda – affordable universal health care and energy independence.

On health, his speech addressed only one aspect of his reforms – using information technology to modernize health care delivery. And his promise to “harness” the sun and wind and soil as an energy option is more lyrical sentiment than national energy policy, which likely would still rely on fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Even with a Democratic Congress to back him up, Obama still will face political pitfalls and roadblocks. He signaled what could be his toughest task, “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

The words are now behind him. His presidency begins.

Anne Gearan covers national security policy for The Associated Press. Jim Kuhnhenn has covered Washington politics for 15 years.

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REACTION

The inauguration of Barack Obama as president had individual meaning for the many who crowded the nation’s capital.

Their voices:

As a real estate appraiser, Denise Grandberry of St. Louis has seen many forced out of their homes.

“I’ve seen the remnants of peoples’ lives,” Grandberry said. “I’ve seen the people who have left things behind. And we need a change. I have hope now, and I think the nation has hope.”

Mikki Hill, 26, came from Winston-Salem, N.C., with his mother.

“It’s not just about a black president,” he said. “Everybody is behind him. Everybody’s come from as far as the Earth is wide.”

Cleveland Wesley watched the sun rise on the National Mall, thinking of the old days in Houston, where he lives.

“Houston didn’t desegregate until 1967. Our formative years were in segregation,” said Wesley, 56, a retired electronics engineer. “This situation is so emotional, it’s basically an unreal experience.”

High school teacher Jackie Applewhite, 48, drove to Washington from Chicago’s South Side.

“It’s something I can share with my students,” Applewhite said. “I can encourage my students to study and tell them that education is the key to success.”

Tina Suggs, 40, brought her 8-month-old daughter Malia – named for Obama’s older daughter – from New Orleans.

“For years and years and years, she’ll hear she was a part of it,” Suggs said.

Lyshundria Houston, 34, traveled from Memphis, Tenn., where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

“I’ve been real emotional all morning thinking about my grandmother and the heroes whose shoulders we stand on,” Houston said. “They’d be so proud.”

By Jim Kuhnhenn, Ann Gearan

Malia and Sasha Obama, ages 10 and 7, will be the first school-age children in the White House since Chelsea Clinton arrived at age 12 in 1993.

At least two dozen other children and teenagers have lived in the White House:

• Tad Lincoln was 7 when his father, Abraham Lincoln, became president in 1861. The Civil War began a month later. Tad wore a kid-size Union uniform and used a toy cannon to bomb the door of the Cabinet Room, sometimes disrupting his dad’s meetings.

• Irvin Garfield, 11 when his father, James A. Garfield, took office in 1881, often rode his bicycle down the grand staircase and through diplomatic rooms.

• Ruth Cleveland was a year old when her father, Grover Cleveland, became president the second time in 1893. She was known as “Baby Ruth.”

• Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest of Theodore Roosevelt’s six children, was 3 when his dad took office in 1901. Quentin roller-skated down the halls, ran a toy wagon through a full-size portrait of a former first lady and cheered up sick brother Archie by sneaking his pony, Algonquin, up the elevator and into Archie’s bedroom.

Quentin’s oldest sister, Alice, 17 when she moved into the White House, was known for smoking in public – which was very shocking then – and carrying a pet snake named Emily Spinach to parties.

• John F. Kennedy Jr., known as “John John,” was 2 months old when his father took office in 1961. He liked to hide under his dad’s desk in the Oval Office. His older sister, Caroline, was 3. She had her own first-grade classroom in the White House, attended by friends who arrived in family cars.

• Susan Ford, 17 when her dad, Gerald Ford, became president in 1974, attended a private high school and invited her class to the White House for their senior prom.

• Amy Carter, 9 when her father, Jimmy Carter, took office in 1977, played in a treehouse on the South Lawn. She read books at state dinners.

• Chelsea Clinton lived in the White House from age 12, in 1993, until she left at 17 to attend Stanford University. She and her parents, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, often ate in a small room that used to be a butler’s pantry.

WASHINGTON – Joe Biden looked so young during his first Senate term in the 1970s, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once mistook him for a staffer.

Now the white-haired, 66-year-old vice president brings an extensive Washington résumé to the new administration.

Despite all those years of working in Washington, Biden has remained a Delaware resident – making the 110-mile trek to his office by Amtrak train. The vice presidential residence will be his first Washington home.

Born in Scranton, Pa., Biden’s roots run deep in Delaware, where he was elected just shy of his 30th birthday. Just before his first term, Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and infant daughter, Naomi, were killed and his sons, Beau and Hunter, were critically injured in a car accident in December 1972 while Christmas shopping. His sons fully recovered.

Beau is Delaware’s attorney general and an Army National Guard lawyer who recently deployed to Iraq. Hunter is a Washington lawyer.

Another difficult time followed in 1988 when Biden underwent surgery for near-fatal brain aneurysms.

He married his second wife, Jill, in 1977, and they have a daughter, Ashley, a social worker.

Biden’s off-the-cuff remarks have been an asset as well as a liability. He apologized in 2007 after calling Obama the first “mainstream African-American (presidential candidate) who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

News of his clumsy compliment exploded the day he launched his second presidential bid. Obama didn’t take offense, and the damage didn’t stick.

“It’s pretty easy to fall in love with Joe Biden,” Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell said in August. “Even his mistakes – you shake your head and you have a tendency to say, ‘Gosh.’ But that’s Joe.”

Biden’s voting record has been moderate to liberal. He counts among his accomplishments the 1994 crime bill that put 100,000 more police officers on the street and the Violence Against Women Act that targeted domestic violence and rape.

Biden sees the office of vice president primarily as advisory. He has been critical of Vice President Dick Cheney’s broad interpretation of his role, calling him during a debate “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had.”

On the day Obama chose him as his running mate, Biden said he would bring “seasoning” and “perspective” to an Obama administration.

“The one thing I’m convinced of is that Barack Obama is actually looking for somebody to be a partner,” Biden said. “Someone who, when the door’s closed, will give him his honest, unvarnished opinion and who will support the judgment he makes.”

Michelle Obama might be the first person to describe a grueling presidential campaign as time that brought the family closer together.

Obama, 45, has been a lawyer, head of a job training program, and liaison between a hospital and its community. But in the White House, she says her first duty will be as “mom in chief.”

The working mother and soon-to-be first lady embodies a modern conundrum: how women balance a public life and a private one as a mother.

Her husband calls her “the real star of the Obama family.”

When Barack Obama decided to run for president, she was the first voter he had to convince. She worried about the children and his safety. But then, she said, she realized that he was the kind of person she wanted as president.

When she started campaigning in 2007, she drew attention with her style, her smile and her knack for presenting the Obamas as a regular family. The campaign made it known that she did not spend more than one night away from her children, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. She went on daytime chatfest “The View” and talked about pantyhose, she danced with Ellen DeGeneres, and she deftly sparred with late-night comedian Stephen Colbert.

“How many silver spoons were you born with?” he asked.

“We had four spoons,” she shot back. “Then my father got a raise at the plant, and we had five spoons.”

Obama could describe herself as “the classical African-American dream story,” biographer Liza Mundy writes.

Michelle Robinson was born on Chicago’s South Side. Her father worked at a city water plant. Her mother was home to raise Michelle and her older brother, Craig.

She sees an upside to the move to the White House.

“We get to be together under the one roof – having dinners together,” she told “60 Minutes.”

“I envision the kids coming home from school and being able to run across the way to the Oval Office and see their dad before they start their homework. . . . And that gives me reason to be excited.”

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MICHELLE OBAMA FILE

• Age: 45; born Jan. 17, 1964, in Chicago.

• Experience: Vice president of community and external affairs, executive director of community affairs, University of Chicago Medical Center, 2002-08; associate dean of student services, University of Chicago, 1996-2002; founding executive director, Public Allies Chicago, 1993-96; assistant commissioner of planning and development, assistant in chief of staff’s office, city of Chicago, 1991-93; lawyer, Sidley & Austin, 1988-91.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree, Princeton University, 1985; law degree, Harvard University, 1988.

Barack Obama once described himself as having been “a young man of mixed race, without firm anchor in any particular community, without even a father’s steadying hand.” What he did have, he says, was the American Dream – the idea that “we are not constrained by the accident of birth, but can make of our lives what we will.”

His first challenge was to reach across racial and cultural chasms within his family and himself. Later, as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama learned to listen to others, find common ground and help work toward shared goals.

He has applied those lessons ever since.

America has never chosen a president like Barack Hussein Obama: Born in Hawaii to a white teenage mother and a visiting black student from Kenya, named for the father who left when he was 2, raised in Indonesia and Hawaii by his mother and her parents.

Obama’s father was a distant figure who visited him once when he was 10. He died in a car crash in Nairobi when Obama was 21.

Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, was an idealistic anthropologist who wore Birkenstocks and spent years abroad promoting credit programs for women.

“She insisted that we engage in a life of service,” says Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s half sister.

Adolescence in Hawaii was difficult. Obama wrote that he learned “to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds.”

His post-college life began in 1985, at 24, at the church-based Developing Communities Project in Chicago. Jerry Kellman offered him $10,000 a year to organize a South Side neighborhood devastated from plant closings.

“He built it into something strong,” Kellman says. “He made sure that when he left, there was something that would survive his leaving.”

He also acquired a pastor – Trinity United Church of Christ’s Jeremiah Wright – who would later preside at his wedding, baptize his daughters, provide the title of his second book and nearly destroy his presidential campaign.

Obama arrived at Harvard at 27. His election as Harvard Law Review’s first black president was so noteworthy that The New York Times wrote an article and a book publisher gave him a contract.

Classmates say Obama kept the peace in a contentious atmosphere.

“When things threatened to blow up, he was a calming force,” says law-review colleague Kenneth Mack, now a Harvard law professor.

Obama returned to Chicago to marry another Harvard law graduate, Michelle Robinson. They met at a law firm when she was picked to be his summer mentor.

In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate.

“He was a legislative machine” in the state Senate, says David Wilhelm, a former national Democratic Party chairman who until recently lived in Chicago. “He actually cared about ideas and was willing to work hard to make those ideas a reality.”

His most notable speech during that period was his 2002 argument against invading Iraq. He said that “even a successful war . . . will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”

Obama’s national ascent began at the 2004 Democratic National Convention with a keynote speech about his unusual background and the ties that bind America. He was running for U.S. Senate.

“We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states,” he said. “We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.”

That November he defeated Republican Alan Keyes, a black conservative recruited from Maryland, by the largest margin in Illinois history: 70 percent to 27 percent.

On Feb. 10, 2007, barely two years after he arrived in Washington, Obama entered the presidential race.

He had bet correctly that change was what voters wanted most, and that the Internet had vast untapped potential as an organizing and fundraising tool. He also had a team that did not discount any state, allowing him to pile up convention delegates in unlikely places like Idaho.

On Election Night, Obama paid tribute to the dream that had sustained him: “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible . . . tonight is your answer.”

• March 6, 1857: In the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that slaves are not citizens and cannot expect protection from the federal government or courts.

• Jan. 1, 1863: President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, ordering that all slaves within rebellious areas “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

• Dec. 6, 1865: The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, putting an end to slavery.

• July 9, 1868: The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing the liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to freed slaves.

• Feb. 3, 1870: The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, granting the right to vote to African-American men.

• Aug. 18, 1920: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, granting the right to vote to all women.

• May 17, 1954: In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that school segregation violates the 14th Amendment. A year later, the court would order an end to school segregation “with all deliberate speed.”

• Dec. 1, 1955: Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old NAACP member, refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white passenger, touching off a bus boycott that would not end until buses were desegregated on Dec. 21, 1956.

• Sept. 24, 1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower issues Executive Order 10730, sending federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to maintain order and peace as Central High School is integrated.

• Aug. 28, 1963: An estimated 250,000 people, a fifth or more of them white, gather for the March on Washington, which featured the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

• Sept. 15, 1963: A bomb goes off at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., killing four young girls and touching off riots in the city.

• July 2, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

• March 7, 1965: Demonstrators begin a march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, Ala., to press for voting rights, but 50 marchers are hospitalized after being stopped at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by police officers wielding whips, clubs and tear gas. The encounter, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” is credited with winning support for a voting rights law enacted five months later.

• Aug. 6, 1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, largely to enforce the 15th Amendment ratified 95 years earlier.

• April 4, 1968: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., setting off riots around the country.

• Oct. 24, 2005: Rosa Parks dies at 92.

• Jan. 30, 2006: Coretta Scott King, wife of the slain civil rights leader, dies at 78.

• Aug. 28, 2008: Sen. Barack Obama accepts nomination of the Democratic Party for president.

• Nov. 4, 2008: Obama is elected as the first black president.

• Jan. 20, 2009: Obama takes the presidential oath of office.

By James Merriweather, Dan Garrow

• Aug. 4, 1961: Born in Honolulu to an economics student from Kenya and a Kansas native.

• 1963: Barack’s parents separate and then divorce.

• 1967: Moves to Indonesia when his mother remarries.

• 1971: Returns to Hawaii and lives with his grandparents.

• 1979: Graduates high school in Honolulu.

• 1979-81: Attends Occidental College in southern California.

• 1983: Graduates from Columbia University in New York City.

• 1983-84: Works for Business International Corp., a firm helping American businesses abroad.

• 1985: Moves to Chicago to work for nonprofit group.

• 1988: Enrolls in law school.

• February 1990: Elected first black president of Harvard Law Review.

• Spring 1991: Graduates magna cum laude from Harvard.

• Summer 1991: Returns to Chicago as civil rights lawyer and teaches constitutional law at University of Chicago.

• Oct. 18, 1992: Marries Michelle LaVaughn Robinson.

• 1993-96: Becomes associate at Miner, Barnhill & Galland, representing community organizers, discrimination claims and voting-rights cases.

• 1993-2004: Lectures in constitutional law at University of Chicago.

• 1995: Publishes “Dreams from My Father.”

• November 1995: Mother Stanley Ann Dunham dies.

• 1996: Elected to Illinois state Senate.

• 1999: Daughter Malia Ann is born.

• 2000: Makes unsuccessful bid for Democratic nomination to U.S. House of Representatives.

• 2001: Daughter Natasha, known as Sasha, is born.

• March 2004: Wins Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

• July 27, 2004: Delivers keynote speech at Democratic National Convention.

• 2004: Elected to U.S. Senate.

• Spring 2005: Listed as one of Time magazine’s “world’s most influential people”

• Feb. 10, 2007: Announces his run for president at Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., where Abraham Lincoln’s political career was born.

• Jan. 3, 2008: Wins Iowa caucuses.

• June 3, 2008: Wins the 2,118 delegates needed for Democratic nomination.

• Aug. 28, 2008: Accepts the party’s nomination on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

• Nov. 2, 2008: Maternal grandmother Madelyn Dunham dies.

• Nov. 4, 2008: Wins presidential election.

WASHINGTON – A vast, excited crowd of more than 1 million bore witness Tuesday to a transfer of American power like none before it. The blare of regal trumpets and thunder of cannon were familiar. The transition from Republican to Democrat, and gray hair to dark, had happened before.

But this was white to black, a shattering of racial barriers finally made complete when Barack Obama made it through a bumbled oath-taking, delivered a momentous-by-definition speech and got back to being his unflappable self.

The Democrat who charged onto the national scene saying this was not a nation of red states and blue states, but the United States, became president while wearing a red tie, the Republican color.

Republican George W. Bush, president no more, wore a blue tie, the Democratic color. They embraced at the Capitol and walked out together.

“Everybody is behind him,” said Mikki Hill, 26, who traveled from Winston-Salem, N.C., and marveled at the multiracial multitudes. “Everybody’s come from as far as the Earth is wide.”

So it seemed on a day when change and continuity marched together in a spectacle of pageantry and raw emotion.

A couple of hours after being sworn in, Obama and his wife, Michelle, got out of their armored limousine bearing the license plate USA 1 and strolled together down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, holding hands and waving during the spirited inaugural parade. People along the packed parade route screeched in greeting.

The racial milestone lent a deeply personal dimension for many in the crowds 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, after more than 20 hours of travel. Houston, who is black, said: “They’d be so proud.”

Energized by the moment, hordes clogged the scene, enduring below-freezing temperatures. Starting before dawn, with the Capitol bathed in lights, they streamed from jammed subway stations and thronged past parked buses, emergency vehicles and street vendors to Pennsylvania Avenue and the National Mall.

Ticket holders approaching the inaugural site filed through security sweeps in lines coiled like cinnamon rolls.

They cheered dignitaries as they came on to 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.

The crowd erupted in jubilation as he strode out.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, the latter walking haltingly with a cane, embraced.

Roland Pool, 47, a white social worker from Santa Fe, N.M., said Obama was “solid and up-front. He deals with a million people with a smile – and stoicism, too.”

Elizabeth Courtman, 24, who recently moved to Washington from southern Alabama and supported Republican John McCain for president, said she came away with something to tell her children and grandchildren some day. “There’s no denying the spectacle,” said Courtman, who is white. “Our generation has never seen anything like this.”

The grace notes of the day were not shared by all. A wave of boos greeted the introduction of Bush and his outgoing vice president, Dick Cheney, who was in a wheelchair. “Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye,” some people chanted.

Nor did everything go off without a hitch on the stand.

Chief Justice John Roberts got a phrase out of order when leading Obama in the Constitution’s 35-word oath. That prompted a pregnant pause from Obama at the very brink of becoming president.

Bush and his wife, Laura, were soon out of town. At Andrews Air Force Base, Md., they boarded a plane – no longer called Air Force One because he is no longer president – waved and took off for Texas.

The White House Web site switched to Obama from Bush before the new president had concluded his inaugural address.

“Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov,” said the first blog of the Obama team.

At the Capitol, a protective Plexiglas shield extended about 2 feet up from the balustrade around the speaker’s platform for Obama’s speech.

Muhammad Ali took his seat on the platform, as did actor John Cusack and director Steven Spielberg.

A huge cheer rose from the Mall as the image of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy flashed on jumbo TV screens showing the veteran Massachusetts Democrat, who is fighting brain cancer, heading toward his seat on the inauguration stand. He later became ill at the congressional lunch with Obama and was taken to a hospital. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said a “great crowd” including the president flocked to the stricken Kennedy and tried to help. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a longtime Kennedy friend, said it appeared to be a seizure but he was reassured when Kennedy “flashed him the old Irish smile” getting into the ambulance.

The district fire department responded to dozens of calls from people falling down or complaining of being cold, D.C. fire and EMS department spokesman Alan Etter said. About two dozen were hospitalized.

Etter said medical personnel were having trouble getting to people quickly around the mall because of the throngs of people, but he said that everyone who needed help eventually received treatment.

By 4 a.m., lines of riders had already formed in suburban parking lots for the Metro transit system, which opened early and put on extra trains for the expected rush. Many parking lots filled up and had to be closed.

Streets around the Capitol quickly filled with people, and security checkpoints were mobbed. The temperature was a frosty 25 degrees at late morning, rising to 28 at the time of the swearing-in. Warming tents and other facilities on the Mall were late opening because traffic and crowds delayed staffers from reaching them.

Some 410,000 people had entered Washington’s Metro transit system by 9 a.m., an extraordinary number, transit officials said. “God Bless them, they came out in this weather,” said Robyn Ahlstrom, a volunteer with the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office for the first time as chief executive on Wednesday and summoned economic advisers and top military officials to meetings aimed at delivering the change he promised as a candidate. Aides circulated a draft executive order to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

The president also placed phone calls to Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders.

Obama emphasized in the conversations that he would work to consolidate the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, said the new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs.

Gibbs said Obama expressed “his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term.”

A multi-denominational prayer service at Washington National Cathedral and an open house at the presidential mansion were also on the schedule of the 44th president, taking office on a promise to fix the battered economy and withdraw U.S. troops from the unpopular war in Iraq on a 16-month timetable.

The shift in administrations — former President George W. Bush was back home in Texas — was underscored in far-off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where a judge granted Obama’s request to suspend the war crimes trial of a young Canadian. The judge issued a one-sentence order for the 120-day continuance without so much as a hearing, possibly the beginning of the end for the former administration’s system of trials for alleged terrorists.

A draft executive order made clear the new president intends to go further. It called for closing the facility within a year, releasing some of the 245 detainees still there and transferring others to different sites for trial.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama sat in the first row for Wednesday’s invitation-only prayer service. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, joined them, as did former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., awaiting confirmation as secretary of state later in the day.

“Grant to Barack Obama, president of the United States, and to all in authority your grace and good will. Bless them with your heavenly gifts, give them wisdom and strength to know and to do your will,” prayed the Rev. Andy Stanley, one of numerous clerics from several religions to speak.

Obama’s first White House meetings as president meshed with quickened efforts in Congress to add top Cabinet officials to the roster of those confirmed on Tuesday and to advance the economic stimulus measure that is a top priority of his administration.

Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner, appearing before the Senate Finance Committee for a confirmation hearing, said enactment of the new president’s economic stimulus was essential. He also said the Senate’s decision last week to permit use of the second $350 installment of a financial industry bailout “will enable us to take the steps necessary to help get credit flowing.”

He said Obama and he “share your belief that this program needs serious reform.”

Geithner also apologized for his failure to pay personal taxes earlier in the decade, calling the omission a mistake. The taxes were repaid in stages, some after an IRS audit and the rest after a review of his returns late last year by Obama’s transition team.

Obama and his wife arrived at the White House around 1 a.m. after attending 10 official inaugural balls.

Several hours later he walked into the most famous office in America for the first time as president.

The new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement that Obama spent 10 minutes alone and read a note left for him by Bush that was in an envelope marked “To: #44, From: #43.”

He was then joined by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and, several minutes later, the first lady.

Wednesday’s meeting with economic advisers was coming at a time when 11 million Americans are out of work and millions more feel the loss of savings and face the prospect of foreclosures on their homes.

Last week, Congress cleared the way for use of a second, $350 billion installment of financial-industry bailout money, a pre-inaugural victory for Obama.

Democratic leaders hope to have the $825 billion economic stimulus measure to his desk by mid-February.

“Fortunately, we’ve seen Congress immediately start working on the economic recovery package, getting that passed and putting people back to work,” Obama said in an ABC News interview. “That’s going to be the thing we’ll be most focused on.”

The war in Iraq that he has promised to end featured prominently in Obama’s first day as well.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, were among those called in for the meeting as the new president assumed the role of commander in chief.

In his inaugural address on Tuesday, Obama said his goal was to “responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.”

The two unfinished wars are twinned for Obama. He has promised to bring U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of taking office, as long as doing so wouldn’t endanger either the Americans left behind for training and terrorism-fighting nor the security gains in Iraq. And he has said he would use that drawdown to bolster the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, where U.S.-backed fighters are losing ground against a resurgent Taliban.

LONDON – The arrival of a new American president triggered joy and jubilation Tuesday in a world made weary by warfare, recession and fear. Bulls and goats were slaughtered for feasts in Kenya, toasts were offered at black-tie balls in Europe and shamans in Latin America chanted Barack Obama’s name with reverence.

From Kenya and Indonesia, where Obama has family ties, to Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America, Obama’s inauguration sparked a volcanic explosion of hope for better days ahead.

The ascendancy of the first African-American to the presidency of the United States was heralded as marking a new era of tolerance and possibility.

Nelson Mandela, the former South African president who inspired millions, sent a letter to Obama on his inauguration day.

“Your election to this high office has inspired people as few other events in recent times have done,” Mandela wrote. “Amongst many around the world a sense of hopelessness had set in as so many problems remain unresolved and seemingly incapable of being resolved.

“You, Mister President, have brought a new voice of hope that these problems can be addressed and that we can in fact change the world and make of it a better place.”

The anti-apartheid icon’s sentiment was echoed in much of the world.

Alex Andrade, a 24-year-old unemployed black Brazilian, said Obama’s rise inspired Brazil’s poor.

“Blacks face so much discrimination here,” he said, standing outside the Cantagalo slum where ramshackle shacks line steep hills in Rio de Janeiro. “Now with a black man in charge of such an important country, it might help decrease the racism in Brazil.”

It was a reflection of Obama’s sprawling, complex family tree that villages in places as diverse as Ireland and Kenya held parties to celebrate their link to the new president.

In Kenya, traditional dancers performed, feasts were held and movie screens were erected so neighbors could join together for the moment, only a year after their own elections were marred by horrific ethnic violence.

“Our election in Kenya really had problems with ethnicity. America has shown that this doesn’t have to be that big a problem,” said Dr. Joseph Osoo, who runs a clinic in one of Kenya’s biggest slums.

“Kenyans are very happy because their son is going to be the leader of America,” he said.

In the village of Kogelo in western Kenya, where many of Obama’s Kenyan relatives live, women dressed in colorful printed clothes performed traditional dances to the rhythms of cowhide drums.

At the biggest hospital in nearby Kisumu, Christine Aoko named her newborn daughter Michelle after Obama’s wife.

“I hope my girl will grow as tough as Michelle,” Aoko said.

The Irish village Moneygall covered itself in red, white and blue bunting Tuesday in honor of Obama’s connections, via his great-great-great grandfather Fulmouth Kearney, who emigrated to the United States in 1850. Village residents baked a special round fruitcake, a “brack,” to sell for the occasion.

In the South American country of Guyana, dozens of work sites closed at noon to let employees watch the inauguration.

“As far as I am concerned, today is a holiday,” said Patrick Hazelwood, an insurance agent in Georgetown. “Today is a serious day for everybody, a historic day.”

There was also jubilation in the Colombian town of Puerto Tejada, where sugarcane-cutting descendants of African slaves had the day off and watched the Washington proceedings on a giant screen.

“The people here see themselves represented in Obama,” Mayor Elver Montano told the AP.

In Peru’s capital of Lima, a dozen faith healers from Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Bolivia danced during the inauguration. Stomping their feet, shaking rattles and blowing smoke, they chanted Obama’s name while throwing flower petals and coca leaves at his photograph.

The ancient Andean ritual is known as Jatun Sonjo, or ‘Big Heart’ in the Quechua language, explained shaman Juan Osco.

“In ancient times, it was one of the rituals dedicated to Inca and pre-Inca rulers,” Osco said. “Today we dedicate it from Peru to Obama, because he is the first black president and his heart is big for the whole world.”

In Sweden, African-American singer Cyndee Peters was hosting a “A Gala for Obama,” featuring dozens of Swedish soul, jazz, hip-hop, gospel, folk and blues artists.

“Obama fever is all over the whole world, ” said Peters, 62, who grew up in North Carolina and New York. “What he stands for needs to be celebrated.”

In London, Americans could get free admission to Madame Tussaud’s waxworks to see the new figure of Obama, and parties were scheduled in dozens of venues, from ritzy hotels to local sports bars.

Louise Darko from Atlanta, standing on line to be photographed with the Obama waxwork, was thrilled with Obama’s inauguration because of the difficulties her great-grandfather faced when he was one of the first blacks to attend university in the American south.

“Now when I tell my children you can grow up to be anything, I really mean it,” said Darko, 44. ”

The group Democrats Abroad held a swanky sold-out event at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel and American students at Cambridge University took part in a luau inspired by Obama’s Hawaiian heritage.

In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, where Obama spent four years as a young boy, students from his former school swayed and spun in bright, traditional costumes representing Indonesia’s ethnically diverse tropical islands.

Old classmates gathered at the Menteng 1 elementary school to watch the once-chubby kid they remember as Barry.

“I’m proud that the next president is someone who I have shared time with,” said Rully Dasaad, a fellow Boy Scout with Obama. “It was a crucial time for children our age, it is when we learned tolerance, sharing, pluralism, acceptance and respect of difference in cultures and religions.”

Adviser says plan will stimulate the U.S. economy

WASHINGTON – A top adviser to President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday that the country’s slowing economy won’t keep the new administration from fulfilling its plans for a middle-class tax cut.

“We feel it’s important that middle-class people get some relief now,” Obama adviser David Axelrod said.

Middle-class tax cuts will be part of the new administration’s stimulus plan, Axelrod said.

“This package will include a portion of that tax cut that will become part of the permanent tax cut that he’ll have in his upcoming budget,” he said.

The incoming administration is considering tax cuts of $1,000 for couples and $500 for individuals that will be delivered by reducing the tax withheld from paychecks.

That plan has been estimated to cost about $140 billion over 2009-2010.

The lump-sum rebates issued earlier this year were used by many people to pay down debt, rather than spending the money and boosting the economy as the administration had hoped.

“People need money in their pockets to spend,” Axelrod said. “That will get our economy going again.”

Congress should have a new stimulus plan ready for the new president to sign as soon as possible, Axelrod said.

He placed the cost of a planned Obama stimulus package at “$675 billion to $775 billion” but said “those numbers are not fixed.”

“Obviously, the sooner the better. I don’t think Americans can wait,” he said. “People are suffering, our economy is sliding, and we need to act. And so our message to Congress is to work on it with all deliberate speed.”

The slowing economy also means that it’s more important than ever to eliminate President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, Axelrod said.

“It’s something we plainly can’t afford moving forward,” he said. “Whether it expires or we repeal it a little bit early we’ll determine later, but it’s going to go. It has to go.”

Eliminating Bush’s tax cuts while adding in new middle-class tax cuts doesn’t mean that Obama is raising taxes, Axelrod argued.

“It will just restore some balance,” said Axelrod, saying the two moves will equal a “net tax cut for the American people.”

Axelrod also said Obama wants to create as many as 3 million jobs for Americans, but wants those jobs to be in areas that will help the nation’s economy in the future. Obama’s staff has talked about “creating or saving” millions of jobs with his economic program.

“We want to do it in a way that leaves a lasting footprint, by investing in energy and health care projects and refurbishing the nation’s classrooms and labs and libraries so our kids can compete, and rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges and waterways,” Axelrod said. “And in this way, we’re not only creating work, but we’re laying the foundation for the future of our economy.”

Axelrod appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Will 44th chief tame crises, rise to ‘people’s’ president?

Barack Obama becomes the 44th president at an intersection of cultural, social, economic and political change rarely seen in American history.

As the nation’s first black commander in chief, the former senator from Illinois personifies the kind of social progress many Americans never dreamed they would see. But he also confronts political and economic challenges no new president has faced since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933.

A reeling economy, record budget deficits, wars and terrorism leave virtually no time for reflection after Obama is sworn in Tuesday to protect and defend the Constitution.

“FDR didn’t have a war and a meltdown in the economy at the same time,” said Ron Walters, a University of Maryland political scientist. “These are unprecedented times, except for the Civil War, because we don’t know . . . with any certainty what the end will be.”

Obama’s election continues an American story of racial trial and triumph, one that courses through the colonial slave trade, the Civil War and a civil rights movement that reached many of its climactic moments while Obama, 47, was a child.

That Obama’s election was celebrated around the globe as much as in the streets of America testifies to what his presidency means beyond its traditional place in this country’s psyche and the world’s judgment.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin says the spontaneous Election Night celebrations here may be rivaled only by Andrew Jackson’s ascension as the “people’s president” in 1828.

And she said Obama has an asset that Abraham Lincoln, another Illinois senator elected amid crisis, did not have.

“A country that potentially will be united . . . behind Obama gives him an enormous reservoir of support that Lincoln simply couldn’t count upon,” Goodwin said in an interview. “In some ways, what (Obama) faces is more akin to Roosevelt in ’33, although the scale of the problem was much greater than what we are experiencing right now.”

The cultural pulpit Obama occupies is a purely modern creation, a convergence of celebrity, mass communications and 24-hour image shaping. Obama’s general election foe, John McCain, ridiculed him as the most famous celebrity in the world, but the cut ran shallow because it was fundamentally true.

Obama’s cultural quotient – the People magazine obsessions over which dog he’ll choose for his children, Europe’s obsession with the new first family – shouldn’t be underestimated as Americans seek reassurance and normalcy at home and a more accepted image abroad.

Just five years ago, Obama was known primarily for a singularly powerful moment of eloquence, his speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. And he married technology and idealism into the most powerful Internet-based political coalition ever.

But his movement is dispersed, diverse and not known for patience.

His age and relatively short political history invite questions about his readiness for such a moment and where he might lead the country.

“This is very much a generational change era,” Walters said. “What does it mean in terms of new values?”

With the nation’s security and standard of living at stake, what Obama has accomplished so far and what his election means to the country’s progress are mere opening acts to the unknowable era to come.

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INAUGURAL EVENTS IN TUCSON

Tuesday

• 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Tucson-Southern Arizona Black Chamber of Commerce soul food breakfast and brunch at the Northwest Neighborhood Center, 2160 N. Sixth Ave. Chamber members and members of Tucson’s black community are expected to attend. The inauguration will be broadcast on a big-screen TV. Tickets are $20. Call in advance: 623-0099.

• 9 a.m.-1p.m. Change is Here open house at the Pima County Democratic Headquarters, 4639 E. First St. Free event with live viewing of the inauguration. Call 326-3716 for more information.

• 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. University of Arizona’s African American Student Affairs Inauguration Celebration at The Cellar in the lower level of the UA Memorial Student Union, 1303 E. University Blvd. Refreshments will be served. Call AASA for more information 621-3419.

• 9-9:45 a.m. Inauguration brunch at the Viscount Suite Hotel, 4855 E. Broadway. More than a dozen televisions will show the inauguration after the meal. Tickets are $25. After the inauguration, organizers will go to Reid Park to cook hot dogs and hamburgers for the homeless. Call Sarah Robinson of the Tucson Community for Change, 358-8565.

• 10 a.m. Arizona Public Media and UApresents will host a free live broadcast of the presidential inauguration at the University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd.

• 4 p.m. Drinking Liberally Inaugural Bash at The Shanty, 401 E. Ninth St. There will be a brief political discussion from MoveOn.org and Drinking Liberally followed by a celebration of the inauguration. Call 623-2664 for more information.

• 6-10 p.m. Change is Here Inauguration Celebration hosted by the Democratic Party at the Doubletree Hotel at Reid Park, 445 S. Alvernon Way. Tickets are $50, live music from The Wayback Machine.

• 7 p.m.-2 a.m. Tucson’s Real Inauguration Bash at Club Congress. A flat-screen TV will replay the inauguration ceremony throughout the night. Free event, all ages until 10 p.m., then 21 and over.

FERNANDA ECHÁVARRI

fernanda@tucsoncitizen.com

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SAVING HISTORY

Tuesday’s inauguration of the United States’ 44th president is history in the making and we want you to catch and keep it all. Order a set of three specially packaged Tucson Citizen issues that commemorate the inauguration of Barack Obama. You’ll get the coverage from the day before the inauguration, a special late edition of Tuesday’s Citizen and an eight-page commemorative section printed on the day after. Order at www.tucson.com/store/60 or call 573-4278. Cost: $3 plus tax.

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tucsoncitizen.com

The Citizen is the first to bring you coverage of the inauguration online, with live streaming video from the nation’s capital. Plus, go to tucsoncitizen.com/inauguration for articles, photos and video from Tucson and around the nation.

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8-PAGE SPECIAL SECTION

On Wednesday, the Citizen will print a special eight-page commemorative section on the historic event in our nation’s history.

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TODAY – SPECIAL 2nd EDITION

A special late edition of the Citizen with Obama’s swearing-in is on sale at about 100 outlets in the city mid-day Tuesday.

Where to purchase a Citizen late edition:

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WASHINGTON – Stepping into history, Barack Hussein Obama grasped the reins of power as America’s first black president on Tuesday, declaring the nation must choose “hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord” to overcome the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

In frigid temperatures, an exuberant crowd of more than a million packed the National Mall and parade route to celebrate Obama’s inauguration in a high-noon ceremony. Waving and cheering in jubilation, they stretched from the inaugural platform at the U.S. Capitol toward the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.

With 11 million Americans out of work and trillions of dollars lost in the stock market’s tumble, Obama emphasized that his biggest challenge is to repair the tattered economy left behind by outgoing President George W. Bush.

“Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed,” Obama said. “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin the work of remaking America.”

Obama wove a thread of personal responsibility and accountability through the address. He spoke of a “new era of responsibility” and alluded to the inability — or unwillingness — of Americans to adjust to the passing of an industrial-based economy. “Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age,” he said.

Two years after beginning his improbable quest as a little-known, first-term Illinois senator with a foreign-sounding name, Obama moved into the Oval Office as the nation’s fourth-youngest president, at 47, and the first African-American, a barrier-breaking achievement believed impossible by generations of minorities.

He said it was a moment to recall “that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.” In another racial reference, he paid tribute to workers in the past who “endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.”

Obama’s election was cheered around the world as a sign that America will be more embracing, more open to change. “To the Muslim world,” Obama said, “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Still, he bluntly warned, “To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,” Obama said in his address, which ran 18 1/2 minutes.

A mighty chorus of cheers erupted as he stepped to the inaugural platform, a midday sun warming the crowd that had waited for hours in the cold. There were some boos when Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney came onto the platform.

The dawn of the new Democratic era — with Obama allies in charge of both houses of Congress — ends eight years of Republican control of the White House by Bush, who leaves Washington as one of the nation’s most unpopular and divisive presidents, the architect of two unfinished wars and the man in charge at a time of economic calamity that swept away many Americans’ jobs, savings and homes.

Obama called for a political truce in Washington to end “the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

He said that all Americans have roles in rebuilding the nation by renewing the traditions of hard work, honesty and fair play, tolerance, loyalty and patriotism.

With the economy in a long and deepening recession, Obama said it was time for swift and bold action to create new jobs and lay a foundation for growth. Congressional Democrats have readied an $825 billion stimulus plan of tax cuts and spending for roads, bridges, schools, electric grids and other projects.

Contradicting the objections of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to big government, Obama said, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.”

After the ceremony, Obama and his wife escorted Bush and his wife to a helicopter on the East Front of the Capitol for the trip to nearby Andrews Air Force Base and a flight back home to Texas.

In his remarks, Obama took stock of the nation’s sobering problems.

“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood,” he said.

“Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened. … Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”

Outlining goals abroad and putting foes on notice, he declared:

“We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

It was the first change of administrations since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush — following tradition — left a note for Obama in the top drawer of his desk in the Oval Office.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the theme of the message — which Bush wrote on Monday — was similar to what he has said since election night: that Obama is about to begin a “fabulous new chapter” in the United States, and that he wishes him well.

The unfinished business of the Bush administration thrusts an enormous burden onto the new administration, though polls show Americans are confident Obama is on track to succeed. He has cautioned that improvements will take time and that things will get worse before they get better.

Culminating four days of celebration, the nation’s 56th inauguration day began for Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden with a traditional morning worship service at St. John’s Episcopal Church, across Lafayette Park from the White House. Bells pealed from the historic church’s tower as Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived five minutes behind schedule.

The festivities weren’t ending until well after midnight, with dancing and partying at 10 inaugural balls.

By custom, Obama and his wife, and Biden and his wife, Jill, went directly from church to the White House for coffee with Bush and his wife, Laura. Michelle Obama brought a gift for the outgoing first lady in a white box decorated with a red ribbon.

Shortly before 11 a.m., Obama and Bush climbed into a heavily armored Cadillac limousine to share a ride to the Capitol for the transfer of power, an event flashed around the world in television and radio broadcasts, podcasts and Internet streaming.

Just after noon, Obama stepped forward on the West Front of the Capitol to lay his left hand on the same Bible that President Abraham Lincoln used at his first inauguration in 1861. The 35-word oath of office, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts, has been uttered by every president since George Washington. Obama was one of 22 Democratic senators to vote against Roberts’ confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2005.

The son of a white, Kansas-born mother and a black, Kenya-born father, Obama decided to use his full name in the swearing-in ceremony.

To the dismay of liberals, Obama invited conservative evangelical pastor Rick Warren — an opponent of gay rights — to give the inaugural invocation.

About a dozen members of Obama’s Cabinet and top appointees were ready for Senate confirmation Tuesday, provided no objections were raised. But Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas indicated he would block a move to immediately confirm Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Still, she is expected to be approved in a roll call vote Wednesday.

More than 10,000 people from all 50 states — including bands and military units — were assembled to follow Obama and Biden from the Capitol on the 1.5-mile inaugural parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue, concluding at a bulletproof reviewing stand in front of the White House. Security was unprecedented. Most bridges into Washington and about 3.5 square miles of downtown were closed.

Among the VIPs at the Capitol was pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the hero of last week’s US Airways crash into the Hudson River.

In an appeal for bipartisanship, Obama honored defeated Republican presidential rival John McCain at a dinner Monday night. “There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain,” Obama said.

Young and untested, Obama is a man of enormous confidence and electrifying oratorical skills. Hopes for Obama are extremely high, suggesting that Americans are willing to give him a long honeymoon to strengthen the economy and lift the financial gloom.

On Wednesday, his first working day in office, Obama is expected to redeem his campaign promise to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq under a 16-month timetable. Aides said he would summon the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Oval Office and order that the pullout commence.

Obama inauguration

Obama Inauguration

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SWORN IN

Barack Hussein Obama has taken the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States.

With a hand on Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural bible, and before a crowd stretching across the National Mall toward where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of his dream of racial equality, the 47-year-old Obama was sworn in as the first black American president by Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts told him, “Congratulations, Mr. President.”

Obama’s wife, Michelle, and young daughters Sasha and Malia looked on. They were joined by people from around the world who gathered in huge numbers in the early morning Washington cold to see history made.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Text of President Barack Obama’s inaugural address on Tuesday, as prepared for delivery and released by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

OBAMA: My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it).”

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

———

INAUGURAL EVENTS IN TUCSON

Tuesday

• 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Tucson-Southern Arizona Black Chamber of Commerce soul food breakfast and brunch at the Northwest Neighborhood Center, 2160 N. Sixth Ave. Chamber members and members of Tucson’s black community are expected to attend. The inauguration will be broadcast on a big-screen TV. Tickets are $20. Call in advance: 623-0099.

• 9 a.m.-1p.m. Change is Here open house at the Pima County Democratic Headquarters, 4639 E. First St. Free event with live viewing of the inauguration. Call 326-3716 for more information.

• 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. University of Arizona’s African American Student Affairs Inauguration Celebration at The Cellar in the lower level of the UA Memorial Student Union, 1303 E. University Blvd. Refreshments will be served. Call AASA for more information 621-3419.

• 9-9:45 a.m. Inauguration brunch at the Viscount Suite Hotel, 4855 E. Broadway. More than a dozen televisions will show the inauguration after the meal. Tickets are $25. After the inauguration, organizers will go to Reid Park to cook hot dogs and hamburgers for the homeless. Call Sarah Robinson of the Tucson Community for Change, 358-8565.

• 10 a.m. Arizona Public Media and UApresents will host a free live broadcast of the presidential inauguration at the University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd.

• 4 p.m. Drinking Liberally Inaugural Bash at The Shanty, 401 E. Ninth St. There will be a brief political discussion from MoveOn.org and Drinking Liberally followed by a celebration of the inauguration. Call 623-2664 for more information.

• 6-10 p.m. Change is Here Inauguration Celebration hosted by the Democratic Party at the Doubletree Hotel at Reid Park, 445 S. Alvernon Way. Tickets are $50, live music from The Wayback Machine.

• 7 p.m.-2 a.m. Tucson’s Real Inauguration Bash at Club Congress. A flat-screen TV will replay the inauguration ceremony throughout the night. Free event, all ages until 10 p.m., then 21 and over.

———

SAVING HISTORY

Tuesday’s inauguration of the United States’ 44th president is history in the making and we want you to catch and keep it all. Order a set of three specially packaged Tucson Citizen issues that commemorate the inauguration of Barack Obama. You’ll get the coverage from the day before the inauguration, a special late edition of Tuesday’s Citizen and an eight-page commemorative section printed on the day after.

tucsoncitizen.com

The Citizen is the first to bring you coverage of the inauguration online, with live streaming video from the nation’s capital. Plus, go to tucsoncitizen.com/inauguration for articles, photos and video from Tucson and around the nation.

8-PAGE SPECIAL SECTION

On Wednesday, the Citizen will print a special eight-page commemorative section on the historic event in our nation’s history.

———

TUESDAY – SPECIAL 2nd EDITION

A special late edition of the Citizen with Obama’s swearing-in will be on sale at about 100 outlets in the city mid-day Tuesday.

Circle K 4965 W Ajo Way

Quik Mart 745 S Tucson Blvd

Quik Mart 13122 Colossal Cave Rd

Frys 902 W Irvington Rd

Circle K 2 W Valencia Rd

Circle K 1735 W Speedway Blvd

Albertsons 1350 N Silverbell Rd

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Circle K 2590 S Mission Rd

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Circle K 3280 W Valencia Rd

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Frys 2001 E Irvington Rd

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Safeway 2940 W Valencia Rd

Safeway 1551 W Saint Marys Rd

Walgreens 1549 W Saint Marys Rd

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Safeway 2140 W Grant Rd

Walgreens 525 W Valencia Rd

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Frys 7050 E 22nd St

Grand Market 6250 S 6th Ave

Walmart 7635 N La Cholla Blvd

Albertson’s 2854 N. Campbell Ave

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Albertsons 5085 N La Canada Dr

AM/PM 501 W Irvington Rd

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Quik Mart 3095 E Irvington Rd

Rincon Food Market 2513 E 6th St

Albertson’s 6363 E 22nd St

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Diamond Shamrock 2160 W Drexel

Frys 7870 N Silverbell Rd

Walgreens 2929 W Valencia Rd

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Walgreens 1900 S 6th Ave

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AM/PM Market 2891 W Valencia Rd

Bashas 3275 N Swan Rd

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Quik Mart 1890 S Mission Rd

Walgreens 1550 W Valencia Rd

Walgreens 2180 W Grant Rd

Circle K 4605 W Valencia Rd

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Diamond Shamrock 1909 S Craycroft Rd

Food City 428 W Valencia Rd

Quik Mart 4611 N Flowing Wells Rd

7-Eleven 4680 E Broadway Blvd

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Diamond Shamrock 2616 S Mission Rd

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Tina’s Country Market 5975 W Westrn Way Cir 113

Walgreens 4700 E Broadway Blvd

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Text of President Barack Obama’s inaugural address on Tuesday, as prepared for delivery and released by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

OBAMA: My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it).”

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

WASHINGTON – More than 1 million people crammed onto the National Mall on Tuesday, filling the 2-mile stretch from the Capitol to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to witness the swearing-in of the nation’s first black president.

The Associated Press estimate is based on crowd photographs and comparisons with past events.

People stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the Washington Monument, about 14 blocks away from the Capitol. The crowd was so tightly packed that some people complained they felt claustrophobic. Further away, people surrounded the Reflecting Pool, watching the inauguration of Barack Obama on large TV screens.

“Everyone’s in a good mood,” said Brenda Gruss, an attorney who looked on near the Smithsonian’s natural history museum.

District of Columbia fire and EMS department spokesman Alan Etter said medical personnel were having trouble getting to people quickly around the National Mall because of the throngs of people, but that everyone who has needed help has eventually received treatment.

“Obviously the crush of people downtown is making it very challenging,” Etter said. “We’re doing the best we can.”

For weeks, officials urged people to arrive early for the historic inauguration and throngs of revelers heeded that advice, arriving hours before daybreak.

Some 510,000 people had entered Washington’s Metro transit system by 11 a.m., transit officials said. Huge lines formed outside subway stations; many parking lots filled up and had to be closed.

Two downtown rail stations were shut down for nearly an hour starting shortly before 9:30 a.m. after a woman fell on the tracks. She was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. It was not clear how the woman ended up on the tracks, spokeswoman Candace Smith said. Metro urged passengers to stand at least two feet away from the platform edge for their safety.

Police had projected crowds ranging between 1 and 2 million for the inauguration.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration drew about 500,000 people, and President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration drew about 800,000 people, according to park service estimates.

Crowd counting has long been a controversial issue. The National Park Service says Congress ordered it to stop doing crowd counts in 1997 after the agency was accused of underestimating numbers for the 1995 Million Man March.