Because I am at heart, a jerk, this post at FDL struck me as kind of funny:
So, I don’t even know how to write about this without it sounding like bitter grousing, and frankly, I’m a little embarrassed to have to report that after five hours of standing in the bitter cold, getting pushed and shoved to the point where you start to feel for your safety, and being herded to and fro, the most I can report about the inauguration is that the 21-gun salute is really loud.
So loud, in fact, you can feel it outside the security perimeter.
That’s right, despite having in hand magic purple tickets, and lining up hours before the gates opened, I saw nothing. I heard, beyond the guns, nothing.
I followed all the signs, I went to the appointed spot. . . and what? There was almost no one who had a clue of what was to happen next. Some people who seemed to know what they were talking about stood on the back of a garbage truck and shouted–sans any amplification–so that all anyone could make out was that they were pointing in a certain direction. Most of us followed.
Read the whole kvetch and recognize how very smart you were to stay at home and watch the inauguration in HD. Don’t get me wrong, it does suck that these people went through this, and it would have been nice if things had gone better for some people, but it didn’t exactly take a visionary to predict this would suck for most people who went to see it in person. Someone asked me if I was going, and my response (via memory, as I can’t find the email) was: “There is no chance in hell. Half the roads are shut down, every hotel for 100 miles will be booked and charging 300 a night, and no one in their right mind would be in DC that day.”