Calling All Citizens...And Becoming One

There is a long history of gale winds and frost on Inauguration Day, often inside the White House itself. Andrew Johnson turned up drunk for Lincoln's second Inaugural; Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt barely spoke on their way to the Capitol, and Ike refused to have coffee with Truman. The Clintons, true to form, were nearly half an hour late to meet the elder Bushes at the White House in 1993. This time they had a few minutes to kill, so the First Couple enjoyed one last dance in the White House foyer while they waited for the Bushes to arrive.

A transition is actually two character tests, one public, one personal--the one we praise and the one we really watch. We celebrate the peaceful transition of power in a democracy; and then we sit back and judge how the players perform--how graceful the losers, how gracious the winners, a fierce pageant of patriotism and pride and prejudice all tightly staged on the west front of the Capitol. The cameras could barely decide where to go on that rainy Saturday. There was just so much to see: Jim Baker, the smiling Florida gravedigger, greeting Al Gore, the man buried alive; Jimmy Carter with Colin Powell, who had brought his own camera; George and Barbara Bush all but avoiding eye contact with their son for fear that someone would lose it.

It looked at times like a shotgun wedding, the bride's side and the groom's side, some there against their will, some wearing death masks, others waiting for the cease-fire to end so the battle could begin again. Gore stood there knowing he was the object of pity, the thought bubble almost visible above his head, "It coulda been me; it coulda been me." And Hillary? "Be patient. All in good time..." Don't stop thinking about tomorrow.

But it was the new President's day, and he had a sermon to give. Bush addressed a citizenry with differences so deep that sometimes "it seems we share a continent but not a country. We do not accept this, and will not allow it," he declared, and issued his solemn pledge: "I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity." He admitted that he rode in on a storm; it had rained all through election night, and it rained on his ascension, so he called on the angel that "rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm," all but acknowledging that he was brought here by forces beyond his control and claiming no mandate other than to try to "live up to the calling we share."

It was a fitting end to a week of endings and beginnings, turning pages and cutting deals, cleaning the mice out of the attic. Linda Tripp was fired from her job at the Pentagon after she refused to resign. Jesse Jackson said he would spend some time in the wilderness after a tabloid revealed he had a secret family, a hidden child. A Gore aide left this greeting on his White House voice mail: "Due to a small but significant clause in the U.S. Constitution, I will be out of the office from Jan. 21, 2001 until Jan. 20, 2005." By the time the Inaugural Address was over, the official White House website had been scrubbed clean, all traces of Clinton removed.

In the ultimate act of housecleaning, on the last full day of his presidency, Clinton and the independent counsel Robert Ray cut their deal to end a long legal war. Bush can look forward to launching his presidency without round-the-clock cable coverage of yet another toxic Clinton trial; Clinton can return to private life a free man, the lies acknowledged, the fines paid, the case closed. The most welcome words of a wordy week may have been Ray's: "The matter is now concluded."

It was harder to say that about the Clinton presidency. He had to be talked out of giving his final radio address live on Saturday, just a couple of hours before Bush was to be sworn in. He had spent his last weeks in office working to protect every last grizzly in Idaho, and he devoted his last hours to issuing 140 pardons for everyone from minor offenders to his own brother to Susan McDougal and Patty Hearst. He and his chief of staff, John Podesta, took a last turn through the Oval Office at 10 a.m. "We did a lot of good," Clinton quoted Podesta as saying. "We did a lot of good." Then Bill and Hillary found time for that last dance.

And then it was on to the Capitol and the swearing-in. Elvis finally left the building around 12:25, but not for long. By 1 he was at Andrews Air Force Base, reviewing the troops one last time. "See that sign that says PLEASE DON'T GO?" he told the crowd. "I left the White House. But I'm still here. We're not going anywhere." He was live on every network.

Bush, meanwhile, was inside the Capitol, having lunch in Statuary Hall, giving the ex-President time to get out of town before the parade began. "People say, 'Well, gosh, the election was so close. Nothing will happen except for finger pointing and name calling and bitterness,'" he told the assembled lawmakers. "I'm here to tell the country that things will get done, that we're going to rise above expectations."