I’m not really one for getting up in the middle of the night, so I made the decision to trust in the repetitive impulse of television to be able to watch the Obama inauguration. Morning television did not let me down. The differences in the free to air coverages here in Australia were distinct. Not so much in terms of content, although the ABC2 coverage with a freezing Barrie Cassidy was notable in its worthiness in taking the whole thing as a serious political event. I didn’t watch too much of this however, because unlike Sunrise and Today it didn’t seem to be showing live pictures. Rather, there was a lot of Barrie standing on a Washington street corner interviewing other commentators. What I wanted was the live pictures, and the repeats of the speech which I found on Today.

Sunrise, a program to which I was once addicted and now refuse to watch, seemed to be tapping into the American broadcast every so often and then topping up with inane comment and discussion in the studio and with their so-called correspondents. Come on people, was that Larry Emdur hosting with Mel? Did he shout out “Come on down” when Obama first appeared. With their American flag studio background I couldn’t stand to watch them for more than a few minutes at a time. So cloying and banal.

Today, surprisingly showed a slightly more respectful tone. Richard Wilkins was nowhere to be seen, so thumbs up for that. Karl and Robert Penfold were clearly some distance from the action freezing their behinds off in the great Washington outdoors. Still, they at least demonstrated a hint of understanding the politics of the situation, made some intelligent comments, while also realising that what we were really interested in was what Michelle Obama was wearing (a Cuban designer no less). However, they threw to Lisa in the studio for the fashion discussion, which was probably wise. There was also an interesting discussion as to whether the Obamas were wearing bullet proof vests during the parade (which was exactly what I was wondering as well) when they got out of the car and walked. I would have been.

It was fun to watch the twitchy agents, especially those who had to walk oh-so-slowly alongside the car. How thick are those doors? Answer: very! Would they really take a bullet for the President?

Anyway, I enjoyed the speech muchly. He said all the right things in his usual engaging way. Perhaps if we could have a speech like that broadcast once a week it would be good. let’s hope he is able to follow up the rhetoric in reality. Time will tell. And the joke about swiping the pen was cute too.

Now, to the real business, when we will see what the new First Lady wears to the 10 inauguration balls?

Still none of it affected me in quite the same way as yesterday when I was watching some previews on the news when they played a clip of Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream speech”. Suddenly, I was all goosebumps. This just goes to prove, that television images, even when they are old and fading, if they show an event that had enough force can still affect us in the present. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter whether you watch it in real time, as a real event. If the event has enough force to ripple through time, it can still affect us today.
The test of time, will be if in looking back at Obama’s inauguration speech in 40 years or so, we get goosebumps.