Archives Other Sections Books Features Film Misc. A few feet ahead, a Secret Service agent is desultorily looking through the contents of every handbag and backpack of the people who pass before him. A bag containing a book, map, notebook and tape recorder, and then my camera bag, filled with the usual equipment. And because he gives no response, I try to explain.
Inaugurations are the country's first opportunity to assess the new regime.
Commentators and citizens alike try to infer the characteristics of the President's next four years based on the day's events and ambience. For a man facing a nation with half its people skeptical of his right to govern, the message his inauguration sends is important. Yet the Presidential Inauguration Committee made security decisions that were far from generally popular. Everyone wishing to enter those areas must queue for entry and subject their bags to searches. When I arrive in the morning, hundreds of police and troopers awaiting instructions stand on Independence Avenue and 14th Street.