WASHINGTON - An audience seldom shares the stage with the star. The inauguration of Barack Obama was a rare exception.
On an unparalleled, inspirational American day, Obama offered the country a new, more sober brand of politics. He delivered a call to national service at a time of deep economic distress and extended a generous hand to the rest of the planet.
"The world has changed," the new president declared, "and we must change with it." His remarks were surprisingly detailed and pragmatic for an inaugural address. Shorn of the soaring oratory for which he's become known, they seemed tailored more to coming legislative battles and diplomatic exchanges and less for the ages.
Small matter, in all likelihood, given the extraordinary moment: The day itself - his coming to power before an unprecedented crowd of eyewitnesses - was epochal enough.
Obama took pointed note of the remarkable circumstances, which overshadowed everything else: a celebration of presidential oath-taking by, as he put it, a man "whose father, less than 60 years ago, might not have been served at a local restaurant."
The arrival of the first African-American family in the White House occasioned an outpouring of symbolism and emotion not witnessed in Washington for decades.
More than a million people, by various estimates, jammed the city's monumental core, swept clear of ordinary traffic to enhance security and accommodate their numbers. Students excitedly chanted his name, and elderly black women determinedly pushing walkers together made their way to the chilly, wind-swept National Mall.
Obama could see them over the bulletproof glass of the podium on the Capitol's East Front, a breathtaking, organic mass, spreading westward two miles to the Lincoln Memorial and pulsing with energy. They came alive every time his image appeared on Jumbotron screens, and they turned the Mall a shimmering red as they waved tens of thousands of American flags given away by his inaugural committee.
Those who hung on his words, in person and electronically, attested to the influence of America's new global president. Almost certainly, they made up the largest audience ever to witness an inaugural speech. And thanks to the ever-growing reach of the Internet, more eyes and ears around the world may have caught Obama's message than any previous political leader's.
