A power vacuum between Bush and Obama!

In case you have not noticed, today, between 12 noon and 12:04, the United States of America had no recognized leader. The 20th amendment prescribes

The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January

At noon, on this January 20th, 2009, George W. Bush's term had thankfully ended, but it wasn't until 12:04 that Barak H. Obama had pronounced the solemn "so help me God!" delayed by an anticlimactic organization to the political event of the century and even a slight blunder by Justice Roberts. I would be surprised if anyone complained, but can't help wondering who was formally in charge during those suspenseful four minutes. Perhaps Joe Biden who had been sworn in just before noon? I suppose so if you interpret ceremonial tie-up as failure to qualify in section 3 of the same article:

If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified

Be that as it may, such vacuum sets an even deeper break with the eight years of damaging continuity of power that preceded it!

The Continuity of Hope

In an inauguration appropriately punctuated by emotion, John Williams' arrangement of Air and Simple Gifts was an exquisite homage to the playful hope of Copland's Appalachian Spring. The theme itself can be traced back to a the Shacker song Simple Gifts. This, can be regarded as a hymn to the basic values that our new president, Barack Hussein Obama, has been advocating from the outset of his campaign and stressed in his inaugural address. Hope is audacious after years of straying from those values, but this musical theme too reminded us that those values are at the foundation of our culture and that we were once living by them.

After the Audacity of Hope there comes the Continuity of Hope.