My View: Tuesday

I echo everything Kristin said, for the most part. Yesterday was a beautiful day and across the city was a communal feeling of excitement and yes....hope. Washingtonians often see the President merely as the head honcho who happens to live within their borders. But just as Obama has embraced his new home, D.C. has embraced him back. It was memorable day, and I'm glad I was there.

But, all the hype for me was marred by what I can only call (without profanities) a complete breakdown of order. Security checkpoints broke down, people cut in line, thousands of people didn't even know where the line began, I was one of those thousands. Had the D.C. city government spent a little money on more signage, slightly better organziation this would not be an issue. What happened instead were thousands of people forming a slowly moving mass that simply had no where to go. Stuck in the blob of jacketed people with my brothers, dad and girlfriend and my brother's girlfriend, we were simply clueless about where line started, as were again, THOUSANDS of other people. Some people had been standing in their place since 7:30, we entered this line thinking it would be a place to start but there was no one to tell us other wise. No police officers, no volunteers no one. We all make mistakes in directions, but an event of this magnitude and importance to our nation's history shouldn't mess up this bad and literally leave thousands of people out in the cold. Not in America, and not in the District.