Too young to grasp the full meaning

I surprised Jane at preschool yesterday with an offer to leave early and watch history being made with Mommy. Sure, she said. But first, her class had a new song to share.

We are one with President Obama, yes we are.

We are one with President Obama, yes we are.

He will keep us safe and strong

With teamwork we can't go wrong.

We are one with President Obama, yes we are.

Not once in my childhood did a teacher pen a ditty for a president. Jane not only sings about Obama, she brings home art projects with his head glued onto a gold star.

For every grandmother thanking God she lived long enough to see this day, there's a youngster blissfully oblivious to the meaning of the moment. When you're 5, you've never known a time when a black man couldn't be president. "Do you know why today is so important?" I asked Jane as we drove home.

"Because Barack Obama has a lot of work to do."

"True," I told her, but why is this president such a big deal?

"I don't know why," she sighed. "More people liked him. Whoever is most liked gets to be president."

Tell that to Al Gore.

Jane sucked her thumb through the Rev. Rick Warren's invocation.

So much for controversy. I nodded when Warren asked Americans to show "a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches and civility in our attitudes - even when we differ." Seems reasonable.

We both loved Aretha Franklin's big-bow hat, though I was the only one tearing up as the Queen serenaded the president.

In his 20-minute inaugural address, Obama had the unique task of honoring the nation's history while altering its future by his mere existence.

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new," the president said in his trademark soaring oratory.

"But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true."

My favorite line may have been a warning to himself to stay grounded and ignore the hype.

"Greatness is never a given," Obama said. "It must be earned."

As expected, Jane tuned out the meaty stuff about Iraq, the economy and green energy. She spoke up only once, after Obama talked about those who "question the scale of our ambitions" and forget "what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage."

"Wow," she said, moved but clearly puzzled. "It sounds like a pretty big deal."

Eight years ago, I covered George W. Bush's first inauguration. It was not a glamorous gig.

Washington was bitter, both in temperature and mood. Republicans wore cowboy hats and fur coats under rain gear. Demonstrators shouted "Hail to the Thief" and carried signs saying "Bush can kiss my tush."

During one telling skirmish, protesters ran an anarchist flag up the pole at the Navy Memorial. Bush fans cheered as cops cuffed the rabblerousers. Obama's resounding victory and post-electoral lovefest make 2001 seem like 100 years ago. This is what inaugurations should feel like, if only to heal the collective spirit.

But leave it to the Rev. Joseph Lowery, an 87-year-old civil rights legend, to remind us that utopia remains a figment of the American imagination. "We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around," he said in a rhyming benediction, "when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."

Jane missed the Seussian angle, but tuned back in just as the TV camera scanned the choked-up crowd.

"Why," she asked, "is everyone sobbing?"

"Maybe they're happy," I offered.

The child who can't imagine a life of limitations wasn't so sure.

"Maybe they're sad because they never got to be president."