It was important to meWith input from Hillary and...
It was important to meWith input from Hillary and Al Gore, I had picked the participating clergy, the singers, and the musicHillarys family and mine were thereRoger was grinning, and enjoying the musicBoth our pastors from home participated in the service, as did Al and Tippers ministers, and George Stephanopouloss father, the Greek Orthodox dean of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in New YorkFather Otto Hentz, who, almost thirty years earlier, had asked me to consider becoming a Jesuit, said a prayerRabbi Gene Levy from Little Rock and Imam Wallace DSeveral black clergymen who were friends of mine participated, with DrGardner Taylor, one of Americas greatest preachers of any race or denomination, giving the principal addressMy Pentecostal friends from Arkansas and Louisiana sang, along with Phil Driscoll, a fabulous singer and trumpeter Al knew from Tennessee, and Carolyn Staley sang Be Not Afraid, one of my favorite hymns and a good lesson for the dayTears welled up in my eyes several times during the service, and I left it uplifted and ready for the hours ahead

We went back to Blair House to look at the speech for the last timeIt had gucci black bag gotten a lot better since 4 aAt ten, Hillary, Chelsea, and I walked across the street to the White House, where we were met on the front steps by President and MrsBush, who took us inside for coffee with the Gores and the QuaylesRon and Alma Brown were also thereI wanted Ron to share a moment he had done so much to make possibleI was struck by how well President and MrsBush dealt with a painful situation and a sad partingit was obvious that they had become close to several members of the staff and would miss and be missed by themAt about 10:45, we all got into limousinesFollowing tradition, President Bush and I rode together, with Speaker Foley and Wendell Ford, the gravelly-voiced senator from Kentucky who was co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and who had worked hard for the narrow victory that Al and I had won in his state

Fortunately, the ongoing Capitol restoration project had required the last three inaugurations to be held on the buildings west frontBefore that, they had taken place on the other side, facing the Supreme Court and the Library of CongressMost of the people who came could not miu miu clutch have seen the ceremonies from that viewpointThe crowd, which filled the large grounds of the Capitol and spilled back over onto the Mall and up Constitution and Pennsylvania avenues, was estimated by the National Park Service to be between 280,000 and 300,000 peopleWhatever the number, the throng was big, and full of all kinds of people, old and young, of all races and faiths, from all walks of lifeI was happy that so many people who had made this day possible were there to share in it

Many of the FOBs who came illustrated the extent to which I was indebted to my personal friends: Marsha Scott and Martha Whetstone, who organized my campaigns in northern California, were old friends from Arkansas; Sheila Bronfman, leader of the Arkansas Travelers, had lived around the corner from Hillary and me when I was attorney general; Dave Matter, my leader in western Pennsylvania, had succeeded me as class president at Georgetown; Bob Raymar and Tom Schneider, two of my most important fund-raisers, were friends from law school and Renaissance WeekendThere were so many people like them who had made this day possible

The ceremony started at 18k omega watch 11:30All the principals walked out onto the platform according to protocol order with their congressional escortsPresident Bush went just before me, with the Marine Band, under Colonel John Bourgeois, playing Hail to the Chief for both of usI gazed out onto the vast crowd

Then Al Gore took the oath of office, administered by Supreme Court Justice Byron WhiteThe oath was originally going to be administered by retired Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a great civil rights lawyer whom President Johnson had made the first black on the high court, but he had fallen illIt would have been unusual for a retired justice to do the honors, but Marshalls son, Thurgood JrAnother son, John, was a Virginia state trooper who had led our inaugural motorcade from Monticello to WashingtonMarshall died four days after the inaugurationHe was mourned, missed, and deeply appreciated by the legions of Americans who remembered what America was like before he set out to change it

After the oath, the great mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, whom I had first met when she performed in Little Rock a few years earlier, sang a medley of classic American songsHillary vintage chanel jewelry stood to my left, holding our family BibleWith Chelsea on my right, I put my left hand on the Bible, raised my right hand, and repeated the oath of office after Chief Justice Rehnquist, solemnly swearing to faithfully execute the office of the President, and to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God

I shook hands with the chief justice and President Bush, then hugged Hillary and Chelsea and told them I loved themThen Senator Wendell Ford called me to the podium as the President of the United StatesI began by placing the present moment in the stream of American history:

Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewalThis ceremony is held in the depth of winterBut, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the springA spring reborn in the worlds oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent AmericaWhen our founders boldly declared Americas independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to changeEach generation of Americans must define what it means to be an cartier love Ameri