And that does actually make it much more difficult for Europeans, rightly or wrongly, to understand it.
Nice to have you again, John. John McElwain, the American editor of the International Economist magazine,
who's written a very good book about conservatism in America. It's nice to have him.
Let him go back. It's fairly late at night, or it's early in the evening there. He can at least go to dinner.
ABC's John Cochran is with some of those people here in Washington today who take exception to the president and or his policies.
John, explain it if you would.
Peter, the organizers of these protests hope they'd have about five to fifteen thousand people here.
I'd say they're closer to the five thousand number, but they're enthusiastic. They're very angry about the war.
They're angry about other things in the Bush presidency, but it is the war in Iraq that's the glue that's holding these people together.
Yes, they don't like the president's environmental policies or some of his economic policies,
but it really is the war that you see in most of the signs around here.
And this location now is going to be very early in the parade route, the inaugural route, when the president comes up Pennsylvania Avenue.
And there is no way he is not going to see these people, because these protesters who have legally secured a permit to be here are on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue.
So I suspect he will both hear them and see them.
Earlier, some of them paraded through various parts of Washington, coming down 16th Street.
One of the main thoroughfares in Washington. They had a couple of thousand people.
And some of those people were quite angry. There were no arrests. They came very close to some arrests.
And even here on Pennsylvania Avenue, we've had some run-ins between security guards and demonstrators.
A couple of police were hurt slightly and one demonstrator was hurt, not seriously enough to go to the hospital.
So far as we know, there have been no arrests yet, which is pretty amazing for something like this, Peter.
John, I caught a glimpse there on the monitor of what looked to be a collection of coffins laid out somewhere with the American flags on them.
Have you seen them?
I'm sorry, Peter, I didn't see that about the American flag. No.
Do those? So there is part of the demonstration today.
You know, this brings up a very sensitive subject for many, many Americans, and that is the decision by the Bush administration
not to let the press see men or women who've been killed in Iraq returning home to Dover, Delaware.
The pictures of the coffins are simply not available to be seen by the public.
And some people who are opposed to the war, even if they're not opposed to the war, make the point that this absence of coffins,
this inability for the American public to see coffins, is to somehow isolate the American public from the tragedy of war.
John Cochran, one more question for you.
Do these people who are here today feel that they're getting a hearing in Washington,
that people have taken their protests seriously, that people have seen them and heard them?
Well, they hope. I talked to a couple of Gold Star mothers here.
They both lost their sons in Iraq within the past year.
I said, look, do you have any hopes about the Bush administration for the next four years?
They said, no, we don't. We're opposed to this war.
But we hope that by coming out here today by the people who are parading, the people who are going out to Pennsylvania Avenue,
we hope people will pay attention. So they're grateful for that.
They don't have a lot of faith, I have to say, in this president, however.
And some of these people here are actually pretty angry.
A lot of these are young people.
You and I both covered the Vietnam War protests in this city and in other cities.
The anger level is not quite as high, certainly, as it was during the Vietnam War.
And the numbers are certainly nothing like that.
But a lot of these young people are genuinely, genuinely angry, Peter.
Thanks very much, John. Just while we look at these,
I must say that ABC's Lisa Stark has also told us that hearing from many demonstrators today that she thinks
or that they think the inaugural committee has put out incorrect information deliberately
about where they could go and actually make themselves heard,
and that they're told to go to a particular gate and they can't get in.
Chris Cuomo, I think, is with some protesters who are trying to get in as well.
Chris?
Hello, Peter. Hello, Peter.
I am here at Freedom Plaza. As you mentioned, the history of it earlier, this is a place known for protests.
What's going on right now is that there's a very narrow entryway to get in here.
As you can see on the corner of 14th and Pennsylvania Avenue,
there are only three members of the military looking at passes and approving people to come in.
So what you have is all along the gates,
you have people who are starting to push up against the fences trying to get in.
The line of protesters, the line of protesters going up 14th Street is actually two or three blocks deep.
However, from the parade route, it looks as though there are right now just a thin line of protesters.
The message there is that many people who are trying to come in to protest,
whatever reasons, as John Cochran was saying, you do have young people,
but it seems that you have all types of protesters, even of medical devices.
They are still waiting to get in here at the site known for protests,
certainly in the last inauguration, Peter.
That's interesting. Many thanks, Chris Cuomo.
Jake Tapper, ABC's Jake Tapper reports the same thing as does John Cochran and Lisa Stark,
that there are people who come here today so that their voices could be heard on the subject of the war,
on the subject of the environment, on the subject of Abu Ghraib, the notorious prison in Iraq,
and the current conditions in Guantanamo Bay,
and whether or not people in Guantanamo Bay are ever going to have access to lawyers, et cetera.
These are big issues in the country.
We remind you again, this is a president who is elected on a fairly narrow basis,
whatever he may say about his mandate today, a part of the day,
and an important part of the day we all recognize.
Let's go back to Capitol Hill, to Statuary Hall,
where the president and members of the House and the Senate have just finished having lunch.
And Senator Lott of Mississippi is about to give some gifts.
This is very much part of the tradition, to give some gifts to the president and the First Lady.
Candle holders or shades.
President Bush will receive a pair of hurricane shades.
In the past, they've gotten one bold.
We thought it would be appropriate they get two.
Depicting the White House and the vice president and Ms. Cheney will receive a pair depicting the Capitol.
The hurricanes were designed by Timothy Carter and hand-cut by Master Glass cutter Peter O'Rourke.
At this time, Trisha and I would be really pleased and delighted if the four of you,
the president and First Lady and vice president and Ms. Cheney, would join us to take a look,
just a moment, at these special shades. Please come over.
Hurricane lamps with the president's name and the date engraved on them,
gifts to the president, the vice president, as we said, are traditional on this day.
And it's best of my knowledge over, at least for the inaugurals I've done over the last X years,
they're almost always crystal.
Crystal being the choice of ceremonial gifts, often these made by the Lenox Company,
which has crafted other gifts of an inaugural nature since 1989.
And we didn't see it a little earlier, but there was a painting, especially chosen.
You can just see it up there behind the president.
Wind River, Wyoming, painted by a man named Albert Bierstadt,
vice president Cheney's home stadium is actually on loan, though nobody gets to take that one home.
And there's always an official photograph, which in this case, Senator Lott,
will have presented to the president as well.
Thank you, Senator Lott.
Speaker of the House.
Senator Dodd, congratulations on hosting this wonderful occasion this day.
Certainly goes down to the annals of history, and it was very, very finely done.
On behalf of the Congress, the House of Representatives and Senate,
we'd like to present to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Mr. Cheney,
two flags that were flown over the Capitol today in your honor as you were being inaugurated.
This place, this hall, has seen many great men pass through these portals, going back and forth.
This group of people, this contingent of folks that are here today, have added to that legacy of history.
It's very fitting that we pass these flags on to you with our great gratitude for your service
and well wishes for the future.
Thank you.
People in Washington know, and certainly the president and the vice president know,
there were a couple of flagpoles up there at the top of the Capitol building
where they run flags up and down in about a second and a half.
No, that's actually not the pole or somewhere else.
So the gifts of flags which have flown over the U.S. Capitol can be given to people,
and it doesn't make them any less valuable.
Those people who have them absolutely treasure them, and they are given for any number of occasions.
...of America has been selected as this year's inaugural theme to commemorate the bicentennial
of Lewis and Clark Expedition reaching the Pacific and the 100th anniversary of President Roosevelt.
After all, at the beginning of our new presidential term, it's altogether proper
that we stop to appreciate and draw inspiration from that past.
As Teddy Roosevelt once said,
far better it is to dare, to do mighty things, to win glorious tribes,
even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits
who neither enjoy much or suffer much.
For they live in the great twilight that knows not of victory nor defeat.
Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to join me, stand, and raise your glass
to the man that will lead this country.
A man that will lead this country in accordance with the best traditions of bold American leadership,
vision, courage, and conviction, to the 43rd President of the United States of America, George W. Bush.
Amen.
There will be a lot of talk, of course, this year about Lewis and Clark.
The Lewis and Clark Trail will be a very popular tourist destination, as it always is,
particularly this year is the 200th anniversary of President Jefferson
sending them out to map and investigate the Western lands.
Their diaries of their trip, which are housed in Philadelphia, are astonishing.
If you haven't read Lewis and Clark, at some point you absolutely must.
Here's the President.
Mr. Speaker, thank you, sir.
Senator Trent Lott, thanks for being such a great organizer.
This part of this day has gone incredibly well, and I appreciate your hard work,
Senator Dodd, Senator Frist, other distinguished members of the Congress,
and some who aren't quite so distinguished.
It's an honor to be here.
I really want to thank you for your hospitality.
Laura and I are grateful for your gifts and grateful for your wonderful hospitality.
What a day.
What a special lunch. We really appreciate you having us.
I appreciate the justices of the Supreme Court being here.
I want you to know how touched I was that Chief Justice came to administer the oath.
That was an incredibly moving part of the ceremony.
I want to thank the members of my Cabinet who are here.
I appreciate General Myers, who is here.
I want to thank all my friends from Texas who have come.
I'm surprised that some were able to penetrate the security.
But I appreciate you coming.
I'm really proud of Dick Cheney, my Vice President.
He is a fabulous man, a man of sound judgment and great character,
and I'm honored to serve with you, Dick.
I want to thank President Carter and Mrs. Carter for coming,
and President Clinton and Senator Clinton for joining us today.
It means a lot that both former Presidents were here.
I thank you very much for your presence.
I'm also really happy that another former President is with us.
That would be my dad.
Thanks for coming.
And mother.
I appreciate Barbara and Jenna. I love them dearly.
I thank them for joining the campaign trail.
It was like the camping trip I promised to take them on and never did.
I want to thank my brothers and sisters.
They have meant a lot to me.
Their unconditional love is an important part of keeping perspective
here in the nation's capital.
I am impressed by this inaugural ceremony.
It is a magnificent event.
I think any President who has ever been through one
has been able to step back and say, what an impressive moment,
not in my life but in the life of the country.
It reminds us that we serve a cause larger than ourselves.
We have one country, one Constitution, and one future that binds us.
As leaders, we have a common duty to achieve results for the people,
regardless of our political parties.
There is important work to be done,
and I look forward to working with members of both houses
and both parties to achieve that job.
We have a solemn duty to protect our people
and to win the war on terror, and we will.
We have other vital duties,
and we will strive to achieve results on behalf of the people.
I am eager for the work. I am looking forward to it,
and I hope you are as well.
I am looking forward to putting my heart and soul into this job
for four more years.
Together we can make this great nation of ours a safer place
and a freer place and a better place for all our fellow citizens.
May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless our great land.
I am also pleased to present the official inaugural gift
from the Joint Congressional Committees on Inaugural Ceremonies.
Each luncheon guest will receive a cobalt crystal bowl
rimmed with handcrafted pewter structures
of the United States Capitol dome and the White House.
I think they are truly beautiful.
They are inscribed Inaugural Luncheon, United States Capitol,
January 20, 2005.
As the President might suspect, a very talented Mississippi artisan,
Maurice Miller and Tricia created this pewter design,
but it really is a special memento.
You will also be receiving a historical portfolio
commemorating the 55th inauguration
and providing you with a historical vision
of our precious presidential inaugurations
and all that they mean to us.
And so, Mr. President, on behalf of the Congress, all of us,
House, Senate, both parties, we are ready to go to work.
And we're going to work with you, and together,
we're going to do some good things for the people
that we have the pleasure of representing.
And to conclude the program, I call on the Chaplain
of the House of Representatives, Father Daniel Copeland,
who will deliver the benediction, if you will,
remain in your seats when he concludes his prayer
so that the official party can leave the room.
Thank you very much.
Let us pray.
Lord our God, we have been blessed
in our celebrating freedom and honoring the service
of George W. Bush as President
and Richard B. Cheney as Vice President
of the United States of America.
Endow them with your Holy Spirit.
Endow them with your Holy Spirit, Lord.
We are blessed as a free nation
where power is passed on generation after generation.
For in a democracy, power is attributed
by the people, for the people.
Bless us as we move forward now,
realizing that all power given from above
is safeguarded by you and accountable to you,
now and forever. Amen.
Father Coggin is only sworn in to be the House Chaplain
in March of 2000.
He's the first Roman Catholic ever to be the Chaplain
in the House. The Senate's only ever had one.
He's from Chicago. He saw that unusual sight there
of members of the military handing out goody bags
to the luncheon elite here in the Capitol.
A bowl as a gift to everybody who is there.
President Kiss is his mother.
Very Mrs. Bush.
Deeply, deeply, I want to use the word partisan,
but it sounds unkind and it's not meant to be Mrs. Bush,
deeply committed to her family in every respect,
deeply protective of her children.
Bush is intensely loyal to one another against anyone
in the outside world, whether it's in the world of journalism
or in politics, who are critical of their family.
They have long, long memories about people who've disagreed
or seen in their view to slight them in political life.
But it is clearly moving for this President to,
you can just sense it in his eyes on rare occasions like this
when his father is there, his mother is there,
his brothers are there to offer him some support.
You've heard his talk a little bit earlier about the possibility
of yet another Bush running.
Mark Halpern, our political director, I know is with us.
Mark, you know as well as anybody what at least the talk is
about Jeb Bush in Florida.
What are the pros, what are the cons from his point of view?
If his name weren't Bush, I think he'd actually maybe be
in some ways a more attractive candidate,
very different than his brother, who I don't think anyone would argue
wouldn't be President today if he weren't named Bush
and the son of a President.
Jeb Bush has now built a pretty strong political record
in a big, important political state.
As George Will said earlier, he doesn't seem inclined personally to run.
President Bush told Barbara Walters in the interview last week
that he didn't think his brother wanted to be President.
I think for now that's a closed book, but he's a pretty young man,
and perhaps down the road he might want to be President
and of course extend that Bush dynasty.
And just help me understand, is it a closed book?
Does the political universe think on personal grounds?
Is it on the dynasty grounds or is it a combination?
I think it's much more personal.
I think if he made a run for it he would do quite well with Republicans.
Okay, Mark Halpin, thank you very much.
President Clinton there as well.
President Clinton always appears at home in any political gathering,
which is not always true of the President's daughters,
who have struggled on occasion to have their own independent lives
and pursuits and interests beyond the very, very hot glare of the spotlight
that we insist on directing towards them on occasion.
And our coverage is going to continue, the parade is going to begin,
so I hope you will stay with us.
I'm Peter Jenning for everyone at ABC News in Washington today.
I hope you're enjoying the inauguration.
We'll be back.
Live coverage of the second inauguration of President George W. Bush
will continue in a moment.
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ABC News live coverage of the 2005 inauguration
will continue after this from our ABC stations.
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The Kings on the Rock is January 28th on News 10.
The 2005 inauguration. ABC News live coverage continues.
Once again, Peter Jennings.
Well, the crowd on Capitol Hill is beginning to disperse.
It is, we said here, a lovely day in Washington today.
It's not at all cold. The Congress has been having lunch with the President.
You heard the President's remarks.
The crowd on the west side of the Capitol is beginning to stream out
because they don't get another really good look at the President or the ceremony.
ABC's Claire Shipman, I think, is still on the western side.
Claire, any last minute impressions before you make your way out of there?
A few interesting impressions, Peter.
We had one of the best seats in the House here.
Not only could we hear everything, we could see with great deal what was going on on stage.
It's interesting for all the talk of bipartisanship here today.
When Senator Kerry walked out on stage, there was a collective moan from the crowd here.
Initially, I couldn't figure out what was going on until I saw him coming out.
Also interesting that when the Clintons came out, as opposed to other people who were announced,
there was almost no applause.
Telling us it's a Republican crowd you're with, right?
A very Republican crowd.
And Senator Kerry, I noticed, was applauding the President's speech, but fairly lackadaisically.
And I think clearly the Democrats are still recovering even a few months later, Peter.
My final observation, here in Washington, fur is very much back in style.
I was looking down at the VIP section, just about every other woman had on a heavy, snuggly fur.
We were all envying up here on this platform.
Well, it's not politically correct for reporters, as you know that, Claire.
Thank you very much, Claire Shipman, on the west side of the Capitol,
who sounds a little bit like she could use some warmth.
Koki Roberts is in the rotunda, and I think his snag, Senator Judd Gregg from New Hampshire.
Koki? Yes, I am Peter, with Senator Judd Gregg, who is chairman of the Budget Committee in coming.
We've been talking today about the President's agenda,
and how much of it is likely to get achieved in this Republican Congress.
Well, he's going to have a very ambitious agenda.
That's pretty obvious from the trial balloons they've been putting out.
Obviously, high on the list is how you fight terrorism, and that's the number one issue for us.
But below that, you have the domestic issues, such as Social Security, such as controlling the deficit,
and how you address issues like health care.
And, Ann, do you see those as having smooth sailing in a Republican Congress?
We've been around long enough to know there's very little smooth sailing in Washington.
But as a practical matter, it is time we address the deficit.
And so, looking at it as budget chairman, I think there's a sense here in the city,
and amongst Republicans especially, and a number of Democrats,
that we've got to focus on getting our fiscal house in order.
And I think people came back from the campaigns, back from their states,
and people told them that, that they'd like to see the United States government be a little more fiscally responsible.
That will hopefully lead to some action.
Let me ask you something, Senator.
You are one of 25 members of the Senate who are from a party different from the way your state went in the presidential election.
You're a Republican from a blue state.
How does that affect how you behave, looking at your electorate and looking at the president?
Well, I think New Hampshire is pretty consistent with a lot of what the president wants to do.
We had a little unique issues in New Hampshire, for example,
the fact that we had a Democratic primary up there during the presidential process,
which did not have a Republican primary.
And the aftertaste of that may have carried into the general election.
But New Hampshire has always been fiscally very conservative.
So from that standpoint, I think we're very much in tune with where the president is going to go with the budget.
On such things as Social Security, fiscally conservative,
and you're talking about $2-3 trillion transition cost.
Well, the transition costs, if you look in a five-year window, are expensive.
But if you look over a 40-, 30-year window, which is what Social Security is,
it's a 30- or 40-year commitment which you make as a worker to pay into a fund,
it actually generates a very positive event for Social Security.
It makes it solvent.
And you can't look at Social Security in five-year windows.
You've got to look at it in 20-, 30-, 40-year windows so that you are looking at how you make it solvent over the long term
so that our children and our children's children have the system that works.
And how do you think that the president's proposal, once we see what it is, will fare?
I think it's going to be a challenge if it's not bipartisan.
I mean, the simple fact is that Social Security is one of those issues
where people have to have confidence that the proposal being put forward has been well vetted and is fair.
And that does require some bipartisanship, in my opinion.
So I'm hopeful we can do it in a bipartisan way.
Otherwise, I think it's going to have a tough road.
Peter, anything you would like to ask here?
Yes, I do. I'd like to ask Senator Gregg, if you don't mind passing it on,
what about all this talk from Senator Frist, the Republican leader,
about using the so-called nuclear option if Democratic senators filibuster against the president's choice for judges?
Well, I would hope that they wouldn't, to begin with.
We're starting a new session here.
The judges have been sent back up that ran into some problems last time.
I guess we'll find out fairly quickly whether they're going to be opposed again.
But as a practical matter, let's wait until we get there before we start talking about nuclear options and things.
It's very likely, I think, that the president will put forward a nominee,
should he have the opportunity, for the Supreme Court,
who will be somebody of incredible talent and ability and will be generally accepted.
That wouldn't surprise me at all.
And I would hope that would be the case, and we wouldn't have to have that type of confrontation.
So would a nuclear option have nuclear consequences?
I don't think there's any question.
But if we went down that road, which is a possibility, and it's really not nuclear, a little bit of a flamboyant term, I think.
Yes, I agree.
But we call it the Hulk option, named after Senator Stevens.
But as a practical matter, the issue is whether under the Constitution you require 60 votes to confirm a member of the court.
If you look at the Constitution, it doesn't appear to say that.
It says you need 60 votes in order to do a treaty.
It doesn't say that relative to confirmation of members of the court.
So I think it is reasonable that we could take the position that 51 votes is appropriate.
But hopefully we won't have to do that, because hopefully people can get along around here,
and we can put up nominees that people will be comfortable with.
Thank you very much, Senator Gregg.
Really appreciate having you with us today.
And of course, as the Senator himself said, on Capitol Hill there is very rarely smooth sailing.
We'll continue our discussion, and the parade will begin in just a moment.
Live coverage of the 2005 inauguration is brought to you by Capitol One.
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Stand back, please.
Welcome back to our coverage of the presidential inauguration.
Take a look at that picture.
On the right, you're looking at the presidential reviewing stand outside the White House.
And the picture on the left is different, right?
On the left is 2001, the traditional viewing stand, open, though.
On the right, it just looks more like an armed compound a little bit.
Or a bunker, perhaps.
Very fashionably designed.
There it is from the front.
But the president is now going to be, in this current age,
very much more protected by the Secret Service
and the other protective services in the country than ever before.
And look over Washington this afternoon, quarter to three in the afternoon Eastern time.
And that's a giant communications pline, an Orion,
flying around and around over the Capitol with a huge communications package underneath it.
And as the president is about to leave the Capitol and come, in essence, out into public again,
though he's in a heavily, heavily armored car,
you can feel the security apparatus which is centered in Virginia today as well as other places.
Just take a breath now and say, OK, everybody listen up and pay attention.
The president is coming out into public.
And as ABC's Pierre Thomas, who covers security, the Justice Department, the FBI, for us,
has said that they're using some of the technology here today,
which they're using to look down on Washington, similar, almost exactly the same in some cases,
using in Iraq to look down at the insurgents in support of U.S. forces on the ground.
I think Pierre Thomas is with us. Am I right?
Yes, Peter, I'm here.
Pierre, am I right that people just sort of tighten up about now?
Right. Anytime the president moves, they are paying particular attention.
As you recall, four years ago, the president was met by a man, an uninvited guest, who actually shook his hand.
And Chief Gaynor, the Capitol police chief, told us today he wanted to make certain that didn't happen again.
And the plane that you see overhead is monitoring the ground,
making sure that, again, there's no activity headed toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
They want to make sure that there are no surprises, Peter.
OK, Pierre, many thanks.
And we've heard several stories from our correspondents on the ground.
This is not to undermine the festivities at all, but inauguration is an important moment for people to have themselves heard
of demonstrators and protesters having difficulty getting even to the areas which have been selected for them.
But here is part of the presidential honor guard now on the east side of the Capitol,
which will lead the president off before the full parade begins.
And with us, having just left the lunch, is Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont,
who is the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Senator, let me just ask you what you honestly think the mood will be like in the Senate
when serious politics start again tomorrow or the next day?
Well, it could be serious.
You know, most of us, especially those of us who have been here a long time,
would like to see the kind of cooperation that used to be when both parties worked together.
I think of the days of Mike Bansfield or Howard Baker or people like that, we really worked at it.
There seems to be, I think, some unnecessarily strident comments being made in anticipation of this.
I think you're going to find actually things on two levels.
You're going to find some of the ones who, some of the members of the Senate have been here a long time.
Both parties will work very closely together.
Others, especially several of whom are probably planning to run for president four years from now,
will probably look more for confrontation.
I think that's a mistake.
Well, politics is a very partisan business, as we've seen in the recent election campaign.
What is the benefit in the Senate of being particularly collegial?
Do you really get that much more done?
Oh, I think oftentimes you do.
In fact, it's rarely seen, but the legislation that passes is done collegially.
It's not done confrontationally.
It used to be, it used to take several weeks, for example, to pass a foreign aid bill.
Senator McConnell and I, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, we're the ones that handle that bill.
He's a conservative Republican.
I am a liberal Democrat, and we do it in a matter of a day.
It makes a difference when you work together.
Now, in terms of the confirmation hearings for the Secretary of State, Dr. Rice,
in the Senate, some Democrats have asked for the vote to be delayed so that you can talk,
was the word used, about Iraq.
Is this a chosen opportunity by some Democrats to take a whack at the president's policies?
Well, no, I think some people want to, they want to say we advise and consent.
We don't nominate and rubber-stand.
Now, the Republicans run the Senate, they could have that debate this afternoon if they want to.
It's for their convenience, they're putting it off to next week.
There will be a debate on it, but then Dr. Rice will be confirmed.
It's as simple as that.
Thank you very much, Senator Leahy, for stopping by on your way to the lunch.
You've had a good day, I trust, so far?
I've enjoyed it.
This is the eighth inaugural I've been to.
I get a chance to do some photography, and I have a good time.
Yeah, I know you're a very well-known photographer.
I saw you out there this morning with your camera.
Are you one of those Democrats, though, who's in a state of shock still?
We keep hearing about it.
Well, obviously, we would have preferred a different inauguration today,
but the president has laid down some things we could all agree to,
especially on the question of American freedoms.
I think the leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and other countries may disagree with him,
but I think most Americans will agree we ought to be staying up for those principles of democracy.
On that 1 to 10 scale, what do you give the speech?
I thought it was better than his first speech.
Okay, thanks very much. Senator Pat Leahy, Democrat from Vermont
and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He is the seventh ranking senator in the minority in the Senate.
I think what you're seeing here a little bit, we'll go out there in just a minute, this is Freedom Plaza.
I think what you're seeing about here is more than anything else, and I'm guessing, I grant you,
but some of the frustration of these demonstrators that it's taken a long time for them to get to a place
where they were actually told they could come and make their voices heard.
So they're beginning to quite literally rattle the cage is ABC's Chris Cuomo is there. Chris?
Peter, certainly what you're saying is part of it.
Also, there has been a lot of resistance from security to allow people who do get in to get near the gate.
The security reasons given are that they don't want contraband passed through.
There are some noticeable and large gaps.
Animosity has been building because of that, and as you mentioned, they did start to rattle the cage,
actually unhinged a part of the gate, and when the security officer asked for it to be replaced,
several members of the crowd pushed it into his face, literally.
That triggered a response from inside this tent of about a dozen and a half SWAT team members
from the Metropolitan D.C. Police that came in very quickly to squash the scene,
and now you're seeing the aftermath.
I want to ask our director, Roger Goodman, if he would zoom back so that we get some sense of the geography.
Chris, help me here. We're looking at these people behind one line, and then over towards the Capitol.
There's this big open area of the square. Is that where people are supposed to be permitted to demonstrate?
Directly behind us, going towards the Capitol, where the bleachers are,
is Freedom Plaza, where traditionally people have protested.
That is not allowed today. It is permit only. It is tightly policed.
This street here, this thoroughfare, isn't open in public area.
They just haven't allowed in enough people yet to fill it.
The line, again, goes up 14th Street a couple of blocks.
Also, across from the Commerce Department here, next to the Municipal Building,
there are protesters that are lining that area.
But the irony is that Freedom Plaza itself is not allowed or available to protest.
One more comment on this from Tavis Smiley. Tavis?
These pictures are disturbing to me, Peter.
This is exactly what I suggested earlier when I tried to make the point that it's not what you say, it is what you do.
And it's one thing just an hour or two ago to have a president talk about spreading democracy
and freedom around the world, much less at a place called Freedom Plaza,
named after one Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
And these pictures indicate very clearly that these people are having a very difficult time expressing themselves.
Protest in America has its place.
It's because of the civil rights movement that people like Condi Rice and Colin Powell could serve,
and others for that matter, in this administration.
And I think people around the world, certainly around the country right now,
have a very difficult time juxtaposing the pictures that we're seeing
with the words we heard from the president earlier today.
And this is that hypocrisy that Fareed Zakaria spoke of earlier,
that other people around the globe look at America and just can't quite understand.
Point noted. Thank you very much, Tavis Smiley and also Chris Cuomo.
The other side of that coin, if there is another side of that coin,
and I'm not sure there is, clearly comes from those people who run security in this town today.
This is the president in public on the east side of the Capitol now as the parade begins,
and the president greets the troops in review.
The security apparatus in this town is very much on edge today, and that will be their answer.
You cannot have people running around the parade route,
but on the other side you have all the people who believe in a greater, freer demonstration.
Let's listen.
What you're looking at here at the beginning is the presidential escort.
It is both military and civilian.
It is really, as Linda Douglas pointed out earlier,
a great and wonderful view on the east side of the Capitol.
And for those of you who are seeing in high-definition television, it is absolutely fabulous.
These are men, and perhaps some women as well,
in the same uniforms that were worn at the time of the Revolutionary War.
The
The inaugural ceremonies have on occasion been held on this side of the Capitol.
Now the President's limousine, not his brand new limousine, but his current limousine is brought up.
I'm not sure that's General Jackson. Yes it is. General Galen Jackman, who is the commander of U.S. forces in the Washington district
and became such a familiar figure to so many Americans as the escort throughout the week of Ronald Reagan's funeral commemoration
as the aid to Mrs. Reagan. He's the commanding general of the region. There he is in the lower right hand corner of your picture.
Huge day for him as the Reagan funeral was a huge week for him going back and forth to California.
He'll be out of the public spotlight again after today, but for today he comes into it.
As the President heads off from the eastern side of the Capitol, we're going to take a short break and then we'll be back for the parade in full.
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Welcome back to our inaugural coverage. It's a little before 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Eastern Time, Washington Time.
The skies are a bit grayer than they were a while ago, but it's still fairly warm here.
The stands outside the White House will begin to fill up now as people wander through, those that are allowed to wander through,
Lafayette Park outside the White House to greet the President when he gets to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
It's interesting how the contrasts in the capital city today, because in the area of the inauguration,
which of course is the capital of the White House and Pennsylvania Avenue in between,
there's a pretty good crowd of people, most of whom who've had tickets, very carefully constructed tickets,
using banknote technology in order to get in and see the President.
They were quite expensive in some cases, many of them bought by corporations,
often of them given out by the Republican National Committee.
So, what you got for the most part inside were people who were very directly supportive of the President.
Not as many people as usual appear to have been able to get in who just wandered into Washington to show their kids the inauguration,
and we did hear from some high school kids from Long Island earlier who had a very hard time getting through security
because there wasn't enough security.
And there is a smallish crowd of demonstrators who've come, most of them opposed to the war,
who are not going to get any closer than that at what's called Freedom Plaza, used to be called the Western Plaza,
at the western end of Pennsylvania Avenue just before they make the turn around the Treasury and onto the White House,
who will undoubtedly make themselves heard and have had some attention from the media today, undoubtedly,
and as Tavis Smiley says, will get some attention in other parts of the world
where this administration is not held in the same high regard that it is held in by at least 51 percent of the American people,
according to the most recent poll.
And there is a picture that is just profoundly familiar to any presidential procession,
that's the Secret Service, presidential guard, on a vehicle immediately adjacent on those running boards.
They always bring back those awful memories for at least a certain generation of Secret Service agents
running frantically and moving frantically and uselessly at the time of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.
And it was after that that never again in a public event that I can recall did a president ever again ride in an open limousine.
Limousines have simply become more and more armored, more and more sophisticated protective cocoons
in the 40 years since the president was assassinated.
Our White House correspondent, Terry Moran, is in this procession.
And I remember four years ago, Terry Moran, if you can still remember, you became an invaluable reporter
when the procession stopped for a long period of time. What's it like at the moment?
That's right. Well, much smoother this time, Peter.
The last time, of course, the protesters forced the president to stop and then speed up past them because of security concerns.
We're just pulling out right now. The president gave us all a thumbs up as he got in his limousine.
And as you pointed out, this is mostly an invited crowd right now.
However, I can't tell you, having covered him now the past several years, he's gotten well used to protests.
He is the president who draws protests here and around the world.
And he has the stock line about it now. One in keeping with his theme of the day, it is that essentially protests are proof of the freedom that he believes belongs to everybody.
And he doesn't mind them so much.
Now, Terry, nobody in our shop watches or listens to the president's language any more closely than you do.
This speech was written by Mike Gerson, his last big speech, we're told, for the president.
How did it go down with the eclectic White House press corps?
Well, it's a tough White House press corps. It is on every president.
Nevertheless, this president delivers these speeches well, these big speeches.
He tends to rise to the occasion, has before, and I think that was recognized and acknowledged by the White House press corps,
as was the grandness of the theme.
Whatever you think of it, this speech was big, it was clear, it was simple.
He aimed at Lofty, according to his age, and that's where he was shooting for.
And what he also aimed to do, and I talked with Mike Gerson, who is up right near me on the inaugural platform,
he said the difference between a first inaugural address and a second inaugural address is the first one is about intention.
And the second one is about events, the shared times that the president and the people have gone through.
And you certainly heard that laced through the president's speech.
Was the speech as grand as you had anticipated?
It was, although it was bush grand. And bush grand is plain.
It is not ornate. He has a cadence, a natural cadence to his voice and a way of speaking that's Texan,
that doesn't go for the big Churchillian turn of phrase. It's straight.
It has echoes of the King James version of the Bible, and deliberately so.
But in that simplicity and plainness, he hit very big themes indeed.
Terry, just give me some sense. I can see the motorcycle escort from the Metropolitan Washington Police.
We can see behind that the first band from the United States Army, Pershing's Own.
Where are you, for future reference?
I am directly in front of the president's car. They're on a flatbed truck.
We're one of the cameras that will be shooting the president.
He is set to want to get out and walk this year. It was denied to him the last year, last time of course, because of the protests.
So I am right smack in front of this Cadillac limousine, and he seems certainly, from what I can see to be, enjoying himself, as you might expect.
So I assume that the president is, A, going to get out of the car, which becomes an event in itself, but not until he gets much, much closer to the White House.
Well, I can tell you, the aim is to have him get back twice.
He wants to walk a bit at the beginning part of the parade, and then certainly, as you point out, traditionally, since Jimmy Carter did it, he wants to walk the last ways to the White House.
And I think that will happen, given the intention of some people to disrupt things.
Okay. Terry Moran, our White House correspondent, right in front of the president's car. We'll go back to him on a regular basis in the next.
I don't know how long it's actually going to take them to get from the Capitol to the White House, but for those people along the parade loop, the president is one thing, and 30-some-odd bands is another.
And the Washington bureau watching this with us is David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, who joins us often on these occasions.
Hi, David. What did you think of the speech?
I thought it was great. I thought it was eloquently delivered. And I was sort of reflecting on how far he's taken the Republican Party.
This was a party that was suspicious of foreign affairs, suspicious of foreign interventions during the Clinton years, but he really reattached it, I think, to a lofty sense of American purpose.
And on domestic policy, the part that's going to be neglected, he talked about the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, the GI Bill.
These are aggressive use of government, but not necessarily to make people the surf of government, but to give them some tools so they can help themselves.
Everybody, every American president gets dragged to foreign policy, whether he likes it or not, but this president, compared to four years ago, seems to be reveling in it to some extent.
I was a little surprised by that. When you talk to people in the White House in the first term, they would talk, when you would ask them, you know, what are you doing with your day,
what's the most memorable thing that's happened to you in the White House, they would inevitably talk about September 11th or some foreign affairs.
Now when you talk to them, their attention is much more shifting to domestic policy, to Social Security reform and other things like that.
So I was a little struck by how foreign policy heavy this was, but I guess that's where the president's heart is still.
And I think what he wanted to do was reconcile the debate that's been going on between the so-called realists, people who think we should only care about our national interests,
and the so-called idealists who talk about democracy. He wanted to say our ideals are quite in tune with our interests. So let's get moving.
Did you ever imagine this kind of a speech from Candidate Bush of the year 2000? By the way, David, before you answer me, let me just point out what's going on here.
We try to keep a sense of balance today. One, the fence, the cage in which some of the demonstrators were being kept, has been breached in some fashion or another.
The police have gone through. Nobody's running at each other. Nobody's throwing stuff at each other. Nobody's clubbing each other at the moment.
And the police have gone through. They've been taunted a bit, or yelled at a bit, I shouldn't say taunted. They've been yelled at a bit by someone with a bullhorn and others.
And now they are backing up. Looks a little bit like there's a snatch operation perhaps going on, pulling someone out of a crowd who the police identify as seriously irritating to them.
There's no denying this is happening. There's not the whole thing that is happening on this occasion, of course. And it's a pretty small group of demonstrators, but it is an issue.
And there are, at every major public international occasion, take us back to the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, meetings in Cancun, meetings in Canada, Venice, Florence, other places.
There's always a pretty determined group of people who are determined to be heard in a more vigorous way, if that's putting it politely, than some others.
And there are some people who are absolutely determined to disrupt events. We'll come and go to it as it happens or doesn't happen.
Let me go back to David Brooks and see if we can hear him clearly.
Do you watch the evolution of the president like the rest of us have in the four years? Many people have been surprised. Some people not surprised at all. What about you?
Well, I've been surprised by the nation building. But the idea that America is an exceptional nation, the idea that it has a unique mission in the world to help promote freedom, I think that's something that was with Bush four years ago.
I guess I was a little surprised in sort of a lack of evolution. You know, the word Iraq was not mentioned in the speech, and that's not a terrible surprise.
The word Vietnam was not mentioned in inaugural address, I think, until Ronald Reagan's in 1981. People don't necessarily get specific in these speeches.
But the problems we're having in Iraq don't have to do with our inability to champion freedom. We've tried to promote freedom.
The problems we're having in Iraq have to do with law and order. And I would say, just as someone who generally supports the president, that he's gone a little overboard on freedom.
That we think about freedom, we think about liberty, but that's not sufficient, and especially for a conservative.
And you've also got to think about order. And the president has really done that, and that's been our problem in Iraq. We haven't had a sense of authority and a sense of order.
Are you saying, in another way, David, or also saying that you think in some respects the president has used this speech to be too rhetorical?
I would say declarative. They have discussions in the White House about whether the president should be argumentative or declarative.
And he did declare the high ideals. But the problems we're having, I think there's general acceptance, especially among Americans, not necessarily among Europeans, that we really should try to promote liberty.
The disagreement we're having is about how to do it. And I think he didn't actually take the issue which is now in front of us, which is you've got a country near chaos.
How do you impose order on that country in the way Sehudi Giuliani imposed order on New York?
Liberty just has to be balanced. And I think that's the debate we're having. And I would say I agreed with the ideals he expressed, but he didn't really solve the essential problem, and really a philosophical problem that's in front of us.
I know there is some feeling among journalists in Iraq and certainly here that in the last couple of weeks the president has been just altogether sunnier about the situation in Iraq than the situation in Iraq currently warrants. I wonder where you sit on that point.
Yeah, well, I think that's undoubtedly true. I happen to think the media is even sunnier because we describe the bombings but not the bitterness going through the population.
Nonetheless, I think the president is right to be sunny in these circumstances. He did say I thought it was a striking sentence, and this was a reference to Vietnam, that we're in a difficult time implying in Iraq, but it would be dishonorable to withdraw, and that dishonorable word was quite a strong word, I thought.
And I think in times like this the president needs to focus on the longer term and not get sidetracked by what are the bitter and horrible pictures we see from Iraq.
Nice to have you with us, David. We'll come back, sit and watch the parade for a second. Michael Beschloss, our historian, is with us. I have a note from somebody, Michael, that says you have an observation on the president's car.
Well, a few odd factoids. You know, you were talking earlier about the tragic day in November of 1963 with those Secret Service men when John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
It's not well known, but of all things, the day before John Kennedy was in Houston, Texas in a parade and there in the crowd was the 17-year-old George W. Bush and his mother Barbara, who, although a Republican, they thought it was a nice thing to go out and see the president, as it turned out a day before he was murdered.
Another thing that's sort of spooky is that we're looking at the new president's new car, as we are on screen right now. The car that John Kennedy was murdered in in 1963, oddly enough, Lyndon Johnson, for reasons largely of his own, had it rearmored, painted a darker color, a top put on it, and that was the car that he rode around in for the next four years or so.
I think, including the 1965 inauguration, I think if people had known that, it would not have been wonderful for LBJ.
Thanks, Michael. We know that the president can talk out of this car. This is what he may be hearing, if he can hear.
Terry Moran, there is, at least on the television screen, the television screen sometimes gets it wrong, there's this real feeling of intensity, as if we're watching a military mania.
We're watching a military maneuver here.
ABC's Mark Hopper is also with us, our political director, we'll come back to Terry Moran in a second. Go ahead, Terry.
Things are now being thrown at the motorcade, which is making the conservative very nervous. This is actually a very healthy-sized protest, and very angry, as you can tell.
As I said earlier, this is something the president is well used to, although they don't usually get this close.
It has been the practice of both the Secret Service and, frankly, the White House political operations to keep protesters far away from the president.
He usually doesn't see it this close. He's getting a front-row seat to a good, healthy protest.
And they are just... how far away are you, Terry, from the bottom of Capitol Hill?
We just passed 3rd, there were three blocks from Capitol Hill, passing the Federal Courthouse.
The Freedom Plaza is at 14th, so we're right on our way to what was Ground Zero, although that name has taken on different connotations of the protest the last time.
And as he gets towards Freedom Plaza, you get down to the invited guests and will probably leave the protest behind.
Terry, it sounds to me like one or more people along the route have the capacity to have their voices amplified.
Yeah, people have brought... I don't know how they got them in the security perimeter, but they've brought... not bullhorns, but a little microphone and speaker operation to try and get both the president and the media to hear what they have to say.
And as I said, the president is well used to this, here and abroad. Most of the time, though, he doesn't quite see them close.
And there is a feeling, at least looking at this on television, as if the security guard, both the outriders in terms of cars and the Secret Service who are on foot or on the running boards of adjacent cars, if they've just closed in around the president,
you have this phalanx going down Pennsylvania Avenue at the moment, and we don't really know on television, watching it on the monitor, whether or not the sounds we hear are from people who are somehow related to the picture.
But as you will recall from previous inaugurations, sometimes they speed up, sometimes they slow down, and as Terry Moran pointed out the last time, it was basically a tightened-up parade, a bit of gridlock in the parade,
caused in part by demonstrators, which caused the whole cavalcade to stop and wait until it was cleared.
From time to time, you get a glimpse there of the United States Army Band, takes huge pride in leading this parade every time, founded in 1922 by the Army Chief of Staff.
And today, at least at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not the focus of attention.
George Stephanopoulos.
Well, Peter, this is, as Terry Moran said, the president is getting a bit more of the protest than he normally is used to, especially more than he saw on the campaign trail, and that's probably healthy.
One of the things I wanted to talk about going back to the speech, and it was picking up on something that John Mickelway said just a little while ago when you were talking to him, how Europeans reacted to the president's use of God in the speech.
And I actually found the president did, of course, refer to God as almost all of our inaugural addresses have, but in fact, in this speech, it was somewhat defensive.
I mean, the president went out of his way to say that we do not consider ourselves a chosen nation, and he does not believe that God is sort of dictating what is happening in the United States.
And it made me think of something that the president was talking about with Barbara Walters in her interview last week after he had had an interview where he said he believes that a president, from his perspective, can only be effective if he has faith.
And I think he seems somewhat defensive about that statement in his interview with Barbara as well.
Barbara Walters is still with us.
Barbara, taking note of that and other occasions you've been with the Bushes, some people in the country take President Bush absolutely at face value on the question of his faith.
And a lot of people in the country wonder still how serious it is.
What's your own sense?
I think it's very serious.
And I think that he feels fear about saying how serious it is.
What George talked about, you know, Peter the president has said he's going to watch what he says and not be quite so blunt.
This may be something he's sorry he said, which is that you cannot be an effective president if you don't have a strong faith.
So when I asked him about that, he said, well, it may not be for everybody, but it certainly is for him.
So then I said, does that mean if you're not a religious person that you can't be a good president?
And that's when he kind of backed off and said, no, for each person it's different.
And then he said, it's very important to me, and this is something that worries a lot of people in this country.
He said it is very important to me to protect everyone's religious point of view.
You can have any religion you want and it should be protected.
But to him, I still think it is the central aspect of his being.
Thanks, Barbara, very much.
This route along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House is 1.7 miles, if I recall correctly.
And at the moment, based on what we're hearing as well as we're seeing, there are a lot of people out there.
We've seen bigger crowds on Pennsylvania Avenue, but this looks to be a pretty big crowd.
It's a little hard to tell if it's friendly or not because the sound is largely that of people who are clearly antagonistic to the president or to his policies.
And whether this motorcade goes a little more quickly or a little more slowly, we should know.
It doesn't have a feeling of light, frivolous celebration by any means at the moment, though unquestionably as it turns up past the Treasury.
I can't understand what we're saying, so I want to go back to Terry Moran again, who's right close to the president.
Terry, do you know who's using that loudspeaker and what they're saying?
Yeah, that seems to be the fiscal parade announcer, Peter, who is emphasizing to the president.
I don't know if you can hear him. It's under limousine. All the people who have come out to wish as well.
OK, so that's a cheerleader somewhere along the way.
Yes.
OK.
On the subject of demonstrations, once again, Tavis Smiley. Tavis, I know you expressed your view a little earlier on whether or not these people have the access they want.
Terry Moran says they are closer than they have been in the past.
Yeah, I certainly was not suggesting that we should not be sensitive to the security concerns that one clearly has to be concerned about in protecting the life of our president.
I was simply making the point that juxtaposing the pictures with the words the president made earlier is very, very difficult.
We live in a country, again, where protest has its place, its protest that makes this country so great.
And we have to always provide opportunity for people to express an alternative point of view.
I think it takes a great deal of courage and conviction and commitment to show up on a day like this when you know you're in the minority
and you know that the media tends to have a rather condescending view of protest, whatever the party in power might be.
Protesters just don't get the respect they often deserve.
But again, I think we ought to be reminded on this day, indeed, President Bush challenged us to remember that if we're going to export freedom and democracy around the world,
it is to provide people like this an occasion to be heard.
And if we want to export that around the globe, we should do no less than that here stateside.
Well, Terry or Tavis, if you think we are condescending to the demonstrators and the protesters, goodness, I hope you'll say so.
No, not you, Peter, never.
No, not necessarily never. I just want to make you give me the opportunity to say so if that's exactly what you thought it was.
I think Farid wanted to add something about that there a second ago.
Okay. Many, many thanks, Tavis, very much.
Well, people at home can see exactly what is happening and we do not get as clear a definition of what this person is saying.
And we haven't heard the United States Army band yet, but I promise you we will in a minute because ABC's live coverage of Inauguration 2005 will continue.
But in some areas of the West, you want to stay tuned for your local news now, followed by more of our live coverage.
We're glad you've spent part of the day with us and we will be right back.
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Get your weather and traffic on the 10s.
Weekdays on News 10 Good Morning.
The 2005 inauguration.
ABC News live coverage continues.
Once again, Peter Jennings.
Welcome back to the presidential inaugural parade.
It's first of all a little hard to tell how many demonstrators there are in Washington
today.
How many people have come to express their antagonism either to the president or to the
president's policies.
Particularly the war in Iraq seems to have generated this today.
But of course it doesn't take very many people, determined people particularly, to get attention
in the media universe in which we live and they should indeed get some attention.
And they come, they also remind us without making too much of it.
They remind us that this is a divided country and very deeply divided on the war.
The president who won this election narrowly, although he does have a majority in the House
and the Senate, but who won this election narrowly and who comes to his second inauguration
with one of the lowest approval ratings of any post-war president.
Having said that, and as we look at elements of the presidential guard, this is the first
components of the parade.
The presidential guard leading the president back to the White House.
This is also a celebration of the process.
It's a celebration of continuation.
It's a celebration of the great American traditions.
And people in other parts of the world watch this in many cases with resentment, but watch
it in many cases with deep envy.
And this is being seen today in certainly throughout the Middle East thanks to the two
major Arab satellite channels.
And for the first time, I think we're beginning to hear the U.S. Army band.
Well, I'm wrong.
But certainly they are beginning to fill up the presidential reviewing stand outside the
White House with the—that's the parade look again.
They haven't got there yet.
This is a longer protest than that.
But while we watch this, let's listen to ABC's Kate Snow, who's at the White House, about
who's showing up in the presidential reviewing stand.
Kate?
Peter, I've moved outside right in front of that reviewing stand, actually.
I'm looking squarely at the senior Bushes, Mr. and Mrs. Bush, Barbara and George, and
their sons, Neil and Jeb.
I can make out a number of cabinet secretaries from where I'm standing.
The box is really filling up.
This is, we told you earlier, quite a large reviewing stand.
I know you've been looking at it, Peter.
We've counted the seats.
We counted about 400 seats in there.
And the ones that are closest to the windows in the center are indeed heated.
We checked.
We checked with someone who's been inside, and there's a little heater right in front,
so they'll be quite comfortable in there.
OK, many thanks.
I saw President's principal political adviser, Karl Rove, in there a while ago.
Governor Schwarzenegger of California was in there.
I thought I saw the mayor of New York, various members of the cabinet, and the famous—
All right, OK, so now I figured out what the guy is with the microphone.
The guy with the microphone is like a cheerleader.
Part of the inaugural ceremonies.
We're coming to 13th Street.
Let's hear it from 13th Street.
He doesn't always—
George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.
Let them know that you love America.
Just in case you can't hear it, he says, ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for the First
Lady and the President.
Let's hear that you love America.
And who is to say that not everybody down there doesn't love America and what it represents?
But at 13th Street, there are still a significant number of demonstrators, at least on the north
side of the street.
And the parade so far has a—
God bless America!
God bless our President and our President!
All right, let's check in with our street reporters very quickly and just get a quick
phrase from each one of them on what they're seeing.
Chris Cuomo.
Yes, Peter, there's been more of the same of what you saw before.
The crowd is grabbing things, ironically, from the Willard Hotel, which as you noted
already is where Martin Luther King worked on his I Have a Dream speech.
They're grabbing lights and throwing them at the officers.
The officers respond with chemical spray.
They just started a small fire right in front of our position here.
Small-scale incidents, the frequency increasing as the President has come close, very often
in response to having thrown something, they've hit several officers.
The crowd then screams, shame on you.
And as you can see, there's a small open fire now that the authorities will have to
deal with.
Much of this is garden variety in terms of what's going on.
The reasons given for it are also what you're used to hearing, that they disagree with the
President on one or several issues.
Just for the most part, the security presence has been very coordinated and quick, and they've
come into place.
Basically, the main problem they've had is keeping this fence together.
It seems that the construction of it made it a little susceptible to people shaking
it free.
Chris, one more question for the moment.
We do see the police squirting something into the crowd from time to time, and they're a
goodly way from the President, as you can see there.
What are they using?
Have you any idea?
We have been asking that question.
It is obviously some type of chemical agent, because when it hits its target, it hurts
their eyes and irritates their skin.
You can see it from people's reactions.
They are using it, it would seem, sparingly, only when something has happened and they
need to replace a part of the gate.
Okeydoke, thank you very much, Chris.
Promo, ABC's Jake Tapper on the route as well.
Jake?
Hi, Peter.
Well, we're here at the beginning of the parade, and they have not started yet.
You were talking earlier about it's very cold if you are holding a brass instrument, so
we wanted to show you the University of Texas Marching Band.
This is them.
The coldest people by far are those who are holding the tubas.
As you can see, they put all their tubas down on the ground, and they are huddling in these
little circles.
They seem to be colder than any of the other marchers.
The whole parade is backed up here.
People have been waiting about an hour and a half, and they are very freezing and wondering
what the holdup is.
Okeydoke, thank you, Chris.
Let's be honest and say that for anybody watching this on television, you always think of a
couple of things.
The President, according to the announcer on the street there, is at about 15th Street.
Not exactly sure what the smoke is.
Yes, somebody's, well, it's either from a steam sewer pipe, which is no harm because
the police came along and welded down every sewer in the entire area.
The other thing you always think about in a moment like this is that whatever security
detail these guys come from, when they come from the FBI, the Secret Service, sometimes
detached from the military, they've got to be in awful good shape because sometimes they're
going to walk and sometimes they're going to run.
And then you see this, and it's not, it's hard to understand.
Sometimes the car speeds up and people chase around a corner and there are other people,
civilians running on the street and you wonder who they are.
So we're all a little bit at sea, but there's the President persistently in the car, waving
to everybody.
He may be waving to enthusiasts and he may be waving to his critics.
It does at least raise this for our political director, Mark Halprin.
I often wonder, Mark, whether or not the President really likes this kind of thing.
I don't mean demonstration.
I mean ceremonies and parades.
You know, I'm sure he's enjoying the day and all that it means, but frankly, my sense
of him is these are not his kind of events.
He gets bored pretty easily at the kind of ceremonies that he's asked to attend as President.
It's certainly not his favorite part of the job by any means.
And he's kind of like a baby boomer, postmodern, who, you know, prefers to do what he likes
to do.
And I think he recognized when he ran that if he won, he was going to have to attend
a lot of events and he minimizes his attendance at them.
And, Mark, you've had a chance now to not only hear but to sit and read the speech again.
What do you think is going to make the headlines in the newspapers tomorrow?
I think, as we talked about before, this incredibly expansive definition of America's responsibility
around the world to extend freedom and the implications it's going to have for America
blood, American blood and American treasure, finishing what's going on in Iraq, but also
taking the implications of this doctrine around the world to countries with whom the United
States has horrible relations, countries with whom the United States has decent relations.
And we've talked about some of the countries, but it really has implications in almost every
part of the world.
Can I just say to our control room, I have a little hard time hearing my colleagues if
the crowd noise is up in the background.
I wonder if we could take that down just for a second.
ABC's George Will is back with us again.
George, this is a little, you know, this is meat for other people in the rest of the world
when they see these demonstrations on the streets of Washington, isn't it?
Oh, not compared to what they're used to in other countries, where they have much larger
demonstrations and be much more ferocious police responses.
My reaction to this is somewhat different.
This looks to me like a military operation coming up the street.
Exactly.
And it's unworthy.
It, we look like, I mean, somewhat like the capital of a banana republic that's worried
about a restive tank regiment on the edge of town.
Washington is not this insecure.
And we've been having demonstrations before and having presidential parades for a very
long time.
And I don't think that the September 11 experience means we have to have, I mean, look at that.
It does look like civilian tanks rolling up the street.
If this is necessary, let's use the next four years, someone should be deputed to rethink
the idea of the presidential parade, because this is not attractive.
Well, George, I agree with you and didn't say it as eloquently, but thought it just
a while ago and I think other colleagues as well.
But in a sense, the answer, I think, from some members of the public bill is what are
you to do?
We are in a post-9-11 world and who the devil are these people on the side of the street
and how do we know that we don't have a lethal weapon?
I know that it looks to many other people in other parts of the world as a horrible
example of a free and open democracy.
But what are you to do?
Well, get in the car, drive from the Capitol at 30 miles an hour and have a parade.
Well, that's a very good point because as Jake Tapper just reminded us a moment ago,
we haven't even seen the beginning of the parade yet.
What we've actually been seeing is glimpses of the presidential escort.
David Brooks, do you feel, you shared George Will's point of view that maybe we're just
making this look too much, as he put it, like a banana republic?
Yeah, absolutely.
They should get rid of this thing.
You've got the tanks, which George mentioned.
You've also got the Voice of the World Wrestling Federation cheering on the crowds like you've
walked into a George Orwell novel.
I just think the whole thing is it's not a parade.
A parade is when you've got marching bands and people walking, you have some contact.
We're going to have a baseball team here.
Let the president go to the baseball stadium and actually meet some people.
This idea of walking through a metal cocoon down Pennsylvania Avenue, it's ridiculous.
It's almost like an initiation the president has to go to to get back to the White House
after his inauguration.
Remember, you're in a bubble, you're going to stay in a bubble.
That's the exact wrong message.
Okay, well I keep promising folks at home around the country that they're going to see
the parade and as both David and George make very clear, we're seeing the reality of Washington
today, and I think not over emphasizing at the moment the tension and the not very nice
feeling on the streets so far and the fact that the parade hasn't even started, but we'll
give you both when our coverage continues.
ABC News live coverage of the 2005 inauguration will continue in a moment.
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Well maybe this will change the mood just a bit.
The mood is what the mood is, but now that they have turned the corner around Pennsylvania,
just around the Treasury Building and are very close to the White House, the President
is out of the car.
And it's a great relief to all of us who have been looking at this and seeing as George
Will put it so well, a military operation getting the President back from the Capitol
to his residence.
Now only, I'm going to try to talk over the world wrestling cheerleader at the moment,
this entire area of downtown Washington is closed off.
Nobody moves here who doesn't have a ticket.
Nobody moves here who doesn't get through security.
So you are now seeing people who got through in this particular area because they are devoted
supporters of the President.
Let's listen.
And now just not the White House.
Lynn Cheney.
They're just leaving the 15th Street area,
advancing to the Presidential Adult Rule Reviewing Stand.
Just in case you haven't been with us before,
and you're interested in such things, Mrs. Bush is wearing Oscar de la Renta.
I believe she'll wear Mr. de la Renta's designs by day and also by night.
President, First Lady, been to church today, been up to the hill for the inauguration.
Mrs. Bush looking by everybody.
The consensus here in Washington today, certainly terrific.
President seems nonplussed by the experience he has just had on Pennsylvania Avenue
and may not have felt in the car the same kind of raucous anti-policy
or anti-president demonstration that we sound on television.
But it is certainly true that the announcer, whoever put him out there,
telling people exactly what's right in front of them,
is a little irritating as he whips up the crowd as he walks along.
We're joined by Andy Card, who is the White House Chief of Staff.
Can you hear me, sir?
Yes, I can, Peter. Thank you for having me on.
Nice to have you.
I'm going to ask you a very blunt question,
which is response to the reaction we have had to this parade
from the foot of Capitol Hill up almost to the Treasury,
which has looked a bit like an armed escort for the President
under very difficult circumstances.
Have you ever considered just having him drive back down and then having a parade?
Well, I tell you, the President looked forward to this parade.
A lot of his supporters have looked forward to this parade.
It's a great celebration of our democracy, and that's what the President is doing.
And actually, this is a great celebration of freedom,
and some people are expressing their freedom of speech.
But this is a celebration, and I can tell you there's tremendous enthusiasm.
I drove down Pennsylvania Avenue ahead of the President,
and the crowds were enthusiastic and exciting and welcoming.
And I tell you, the President can't wait to get down to the end of it
and watch the rest of the parade pass by and pay tribute to those who are marching.
Have you been able to see at all on a television monitor what it has looked like,
and does it look perfectly calm and relaxed to you?
Well, I'm not sure I would say perfectly calm and relaxed.
There were lots of enthusiastic people,
and I did see some people expressing their opinions that were contrary to some others in the crowd.
But the vast majority of people who are here to watch this parade
are supporting this great democracy and the leadership that the President is providing,
and they're looking forward to the vision he has for extending freedom to other places all around the globe.
I know when the speech is over, all the senior members of the White House staff turn to one another and say,
well, how did he do? And I think you're probably going to tell me he did fabulously.
But are you wholly satisfied with the day?
Oh, so far this day has been just a spectacular day,
and it truly has been a celebration of freedom.
And we're looking forward to the day extending long into the night.
This is an unusual day for this White House staff that likes to get to bed early,
but will be out dancing at the balls and celebrating the freedom that this President will defend and help to carry to others.
Now, as you know, this broadcast is being seen around the world.
You got anything you want to say to armed forces in Iraq tonight?
I say thank you.
Anyone who is serving in the Army or the Marine Corps or the Navy or the Air Force or the Coast Guard,
I thank you for the commitment you've made to our country and to our protection.
I thank you for the sacrifices that you make for the time that you're away from your family.
But most of all, celebrate this day because you're a big part of it.
Many thanks. Thanks for your time.
Andy Card, the White House Chief of Staff, who will now go and thank you.
Sir, nice to hear your voice at one of the better seats in the inaugural parade.
And says it, and maybe they didn't recognize Mr. Card as he was driving down Pennsylvania Avenue.
I'm not quite sure how the crowd would have responded.
Anyway, Pierre Thomas is with us, who's, how the President gets back in.
He doesn't have very far to go, of course.
He's just going to go another few yards and then turn into the White House,
have a chance to freshen up and then reappear in the inaugural booth.
Well, Peter, one of the things that was interesting is as before the President got out of the car
in the area of Pennsylvania Avenue where he could have gotten out and gotten to the crowd,
he would have had to go through about three layers of police and also military officials.
So I think symbolically you saw a day where the President really never was going to have a chance
to really get out and mingle with Joe Citizen, if you will.
And, Pierre, have you had a chance to check in with the security people today?
They've got a command center over in Virginia.
I think they've got several around town.
Were we correct in identifying that Orion upstairs as being part of the mobile communication system?
It was, in fact, and it had a radar system set up in part to look for, again,
vehicles moving quickly toward the parade route.
We did talk, in fact, to some security officials,
and they noted that primarily they had a number of small skirmishes with members of the crowd.
In one case, a crowd about two blocks long tried to force their way to Pennsylvania Avenue.
One person was arrested.
An officer was injured.
They used a bit of pepper spray, but nothing much larger than what we've been able to see over the last hour or so.
So it is pepper spray they've actually been using?
Yes, sir.
And in terms of the size of either the crowds alleged to be demonstrators and the security detail,
do you know anything about numbers?
Well, in terms of the crowds, one person used a number of roughly about 10,000 strong protesters that located in one location.
You had about roughly 13,000 police and military officials,
so they pretty much matched the number of protesters.
OK, thanks very much, Pierre Thomas, who covers the Justice Department and security matters for us.
As we're seeing the first elements of the presidential escort back on this is 3rd Street now,
I cannot tell you who they are, but let me ask Barbara Walters, who was with us, to give us some preview of the night.
Andy Card says they're going to be dancing until the night. What do you know about the balls, Barbara?
I don't think that they're going to love dancing tonight. I think Andy Card said how they're all looking forward to it.
I don't like to disagree with him, but I don't think so.
The president does not really love to dance. He says his dancing is cumbersome.
There are nine balls. He has to go to all of them. That's less than his father had, but more than many others did.
The First Lady will look beautiful. The twin girls will look very sexy, and people will want to see that.
And you will see some of the celebration that we haven't seen during the day.
The ball's mostly paid for by individual people and states to those who criticize all the money being spent.
And it will end the evening on a high and frivolous tone,
which has been different from the rather lofty thoughts and the sentiments expressed today,
which of course are much more lasting and important.
One of the nice stories I heard today was that some of the officers going to the, what you call the military ball tonight,
are not going to wear their dress blues because a lot of the soldiers were going to come in not in their dress uniforms.
Have you heard that at all?
Well, also one of the balls is free. One of the balls is for the servicemen, and they're allowed just to come.
The other balls are anything from $25 to $150.
So I think the good thing is that the President and First Lady will probably spend a good deal more time there at this free ball for the servicemen and women.
That's nice.
Thanks, Barbara.
The President is inside the White House compound at the moment, or inside the confines of the White House,
gone in near the old executive office building. ABC's Jake Tapper. Jake?
Hi, Peter. How are you, sir?
Well, the parade has started, as I know you know.
And so here we are. It's mainly a lot of local schools and military academies where we are right now.
We've lost your mic, Jake, for a second, so hang on for a moment.
The microphone.
Try it again. Now go ahead. You're on.
Okay. We're just at the beginning of the parade route, and as you can tell, the parade has started, and the crowd is very, very thin where we are right now,
because it's actually not at the official beginning of the parade route. It's the pre-parade route.
But here they are, and you can see there are a lot of—