Calling All Citizens...And Becoming One

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By 2:44, the screen was split: the Clintons climbing one last time aboard Special Air Mission 28000--one of two planes known as Air Force One, stripped of the name for now because the President wasn't on board--and the Bushes leaving lunch to head back out into the ice bucket for the parade. At times it seemed as if there were more protesters than well-wishers along the route. An egg hit Bush's limo as it sloshed down Pennsylvania Avenue. The motorcade picked up the pace as it reached Freedom Plaza, where the gray air was dense with HAIL TO THE THIEF signs. Two cozy demonstrators in polar-bear costumes handed out literature on banning whale oil. Starbucks handed out free coffee.

Inaugurals are noted for speeches but are judged on style; that is where the quickest changes come. George Washington walked rather than ride a carriage to his Inaugural in 1789, to show he was no king of this baby republic. Kennedy skipped the overcoat to show the vigor; the first President Bush wore a suit, eight years after Reagan's cutaway, showing he knew the '80s were coming to an end. If there was any doubt about that, it was erased four years later, when the First Rock-'n'-Roll President took office and the hottest ticket in town was to the MTV ball. Clinton played Your Mamma Don't Dance on his sax.

It's not the '90s anymore, though it felt like it might be the '80s all over again. MTV didn't have a ball this year; the hot ticket was the Texas Black Tie & Boots Ball--retro, perhaps, but still honoring the great Inaugural tradition of excess and bad taste. All week long the capital was filled with Halloween Texans, dressed in a way they never would have been at home. They sold out of full-length furs in Midland, Texas; for those who had never seen a ranch, $450 Stetsons were selling briskly at the Ritz-Carlton, where the chef was whipping up rattlesnake nachos and Dubya's favorite, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, was going for $14.

Streisand skipped town this time; in fact, Hollywood stayed home, unless you count the faithful Bo Derek. There was less Fleetwood Mac, more Lee Greenwood. At the opening festivities on Thursday at the Lincoln Memorial, a lifelike Wayne Newton quoted Martin Luther King and sang Neil Diamond: "They're coming to America." The theme was inclusion: John Ashcroft was there, fresh from a bitter confirmation hearing in which opponents cast him as a racist character assassin; he greeted Colin Powell, who had sailed through his own hearing, and as singer Kim Weston began the black national anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, the men were joined by Katherine Harris, late of Tallahassee, Fla. "Stony the road we trod,/Bitter the chastening rod,/Felt in the days when hope unborn had died," goes the anthem. "Yet with a steady beat,/Have not our weary feet,/Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?"

Saturday was the first time that both First Parents were present for a swearing-in since the Kennedy dynasty set sail in 1961. The new President and First Lady planned to make the rounds of eight Inaugural balls, but the old President and former First Lady planned to turn in early. After all, they were spending the night at the White House, back home again after all these years.

For more on the Inauguration, including a historical photo essay as well as additional behind-the-scenes photographs and audio commentary on Clinton's last days in office, go to time.com