For Some, It Was a Business Day (Clinton Inauguration)
Tuesday, January 21, 1997
January 21, 1997
For Some, It Was a Business Day
ASHINGTON -- With all of official Washington and most of their colleagues focused exclusively on the inauguration ceremony and celebration, a group of senators took a few moments Monday to conduct a little business: The Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations voted unanimously to recommend the confirmation of Madeleine Albright as secretary of state.
The committee's Republican chairman, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, scheduled the vote Monday, despite the inauguration and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, to help ensure a speedy confirmation process and a smooth transition to replace Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
The members gathered in the committee's hearing room in the Capitol only moments before President Clinton arrived for his swearing-in. They voted after only a few words and no debate, a meeting so perfunctory that many of the committee's 18 members did not even bother to take off their hats and overcoats.
"This is the first and most visible example of bipartisanship," said Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the committee.
The vote cleared the way for the full Senate to approve Albright's nomination, which is expected to take place on Wednesday. Albright would become the 64th person -- and first woman -- to serve as secretary of state.
The vote came just before Christopher formally stepped down at 12:01 p.m. after four years as secretary of state. Christopher attended the inauguration as his last official act, said the state department's spokesman, Nicholas Burns.
Christopher's last day as secretary took an unfortunate turn Monday afternoon when he fell and broke his wrist as he cleaned out his home in Georgetown. He was treated at Georgetown University Hospital and released, a spokeswoman, Nancy Beck, said. The accident delayed his scheduled departure for Los Angeles, where he plans to rejoin his old law firm, O'Melveny & Myers.
View From Laundromat
As Bill Clinton gave his inaugural address from the steps of the Capitol, Marlene Young sat about three miles away at the Hamilton Laundromat on Georgia Avenue, her clothes whirling through the spin cycle along with Clinton's words.
"Everyone who can work will work, with today's permanent underclass part of tomorrow's growing middle class," the president said hopefully, his voice emanating from a television above a bank of washing machines.
"That's not true!" Ms. Young, a computer worker who has not been able to keep up payments on her daughter's college loans, shouted at the set as she picked through a bag of potato chips. "Companies are downsizing! Kids can't get a job!"
Still, she forgave Clinton. "What's going on is no reflection on him," she said. "Congress is in charge, and old Newty Newt is just up there having fun."
Shortly after Clinton was elected president in 1992, he stopped here at the shops on the 5200 block of Georgia Avenue as a sign that he cared about the inner city. While he has not been back, and only recently offered a plan to help the District of Columbia out of financial ruin, many residents said they felt good about him.
Ms. Young said she got a kick out of his lifestyle. "He doesn't hide his enjoyment in life," she laughed, prompting Dennis Townsend, 40, a groundskeeper at Howard University, to observe: "He doesn't have a lot of starch in his collar."
But their praise seemed suddenly thin when the television fixed on the image of Martin Luther King III in the inaugural audience.
"Oh, there's King's son," Ms. Young said, gasping slightly. "He looks just like his father."
"Hmmmmm," Townsend agreed, and all eyes in the laundromat lifted upward in silence.
A History Lesson
In the 1960s, Francine Freedman and Robert Schnapp marched on Washington with thousands of other young people, fists shaking, voices rising as they chanted their call for an end to the war in Vietnam.
Thirty years later the couple celebrated their patriotism as they sat perched on lawn chairs along the inaugural parade route with a thermos of hot chocolate and paper bags stuffed with turkey sandwiches, chocolate-chip cookies and carrot sticks.
"In the '60s people thought we weren't patriotic, because we were protesting," said Schnapp, 46, who analyzes the energy industries for the Department of Energy. "But we were. We always were. That's why we were marching, to make America better."
They never stopped marching, he said; they only slowed their pace. In the 1980s the couple brought their two children in strollers to pro-choice rallies in Washington. And on Sunday the whole family was back, sitting on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Schnapp carried a portable Sony Watchman television set so the family could watch Clinton give his inaugural address. His 13-year-old daughter, Robyn, counted the black limousines that cruised by. His 16-year-old son, Michael, snapped pictures for his photography class.
"It's important for our kids," said Ms. Freedman, a 46-year-old teacher, who lives in Reston, Va. with her family. "This is history. They'll look back on this."
In an Instant
Necks were craning and eyes were squinting as the call went out: "The president! It's the president!" Cheers erupted as the crowd in the bleachers peered intently at the black limousines with tinted windows rolling along Pennsylvania Avenue.
"I can't see! I can't see!" cried Sandra Cheek, a 37-year-old computer programmer from Washington.
"I saw Tipper's hair!" shrieked Julie Korn Batten, a 30-year-old sales manager from Atlanta, Ga. "I saw her blond hair shining through the window!"
Seconds later the historic moment was past.
"Well, we saw Carter walk down the street during his inauguration," Ms. Batten said philosophically. "That was a little more exciting."
Putting Politics Aside
Strolling hand in hand Sunday, Michael and Shea Faught, a couple from Arkansas no less, seemed a fitting tribute to the bipartisan ideal so popular in Washington these days.
"She loves Bill," said Faught, rolling his eyes just a touch. "I voted for Bob."
"He's a Republican all the way," Mrs. Faught said with a hint of exasperation. Yet somehow they have made their relationship work. They have even produced a child, Spencer, 6 years old and untainted, as yet, by partisan politics.
How do they do it? Faught explained that he simply allows Mrs. Faught to stump away in the living room, at the dinner table, in the bedroom, anywhere she wants. He nods yes again and again. She goes on and on.
"I always let her think she's right," Faught said. "President Clinton can weather a storm. I'll give him that."
Mrs. Faught chimed in: "He just lets me win."
Faught admitted that he felt a bit out of sorts, surrounded as he was on Monday by so many Clinton lovers, but his wife dragged him to Washington from Maryland and he had no choice.
Where Do You Park?
Imagine maneuvering a car on Inauguration Day past blocked-off streets, clogged roadways and cold, surly police officers. Now picture accomplishing the task in a vehicle that measures nearly three car lengths. Finally, throw in six to 10 well-to-do clients who don't particularly enjoy searching streets in bitter cold weather for their rented transportation.
"It's been crazy," said Walter Lee, who owns Lee's Executive Limousine Services and rents his stretch limousines for $75 an hour plus tax. "There are not enough parking facilities and then there are all these last-minute situations."
Typically, limousine drivers resort to handing out cellular phones and, as a last resort, quarters to clients so that they can call from the galas they are attending when they are ready to go home. Then they fashion a plan -- a pickup spot and escape route -- all the while hoping that they can squeeze past the legions of other sleek, black cars ready to do the same.
Their clients must find them. It would be impossible the other way around: too much fur and black swirling around.
"It's quite difficult," said Andres Rivera, a stretch-limousine driver who has nearly perfected this transportation tango between chauffeur and client.
All this business means lots of money for drivers, but also lots of stress.
Terufat Deneke, a chauffeur for the Radisson Barcelo Hotel, said he has been blessed this time around with understanding clients. "I have to drop them off far from where they want to go, and it's cold," Deneke said. "They are not happy, but they understand."
Anti-Abortion Ministry
Brian Scott Kemper came from Madison, Wis., to plant 3,300 small wooden crosses near the south side of the Washington Monument, "one for each of the children who die every day from surgical abortions," Kemper said. And he holds the Clintons largely responsible.
Kemper is director of operations for Collegians Activated to Liberate Life, an anti-abortion ministry to students, and he said that 100 students had joined him, starting at 5:30 a.m., to set the crosses in place.
The group had applied for the site because it faces the White House, Kemper said, and while the slope had a view of the White House perhaps half a mile away, it is doubtful that anyone there would be able to see the crosses, which were about a foot high and made of thin slats of white painted wood about an inch by a quarter-inch.
One of the participants in Kemper's effort, which was called the Cemetery of Innocents, was Ralph Palmer, who said he was from Greenbelt, Md. "Our tax money is funding the Clintonista regime," Palmer said, "and this administration has made the womb the most dangerous place in the world."
Homeless 'All-American'
The tourists who jumped off the buses that parked near the grate at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue looked at Antonio Brown with disgust. Some hurried away; others snapped pictures. Brown ignored them all, keeping his ears perked for the drummers that would signal Bill Clinton's arrival.
"They be looking at you like you're sick and crazy," said Brown, who sat on the sidewalk bundled in a green flannel jacket, the only coat he owns. "But I'm an all-American guy. I like to see my president when he's coming."
"Ha!" scoffed D'Angelo Brody, a scraggly homeless friend who said he was hung over from a night of heavy drinking.
"Clinton ain't doing nothing for me," said Brody, 25, who shares blankets and grate space with Brown. "To me it's just another day."
A Vietnam veteran, Brown said he spiraled into homelessness a year ago, after he lost his regular construction job. But he said he was excited about the day's festivities. He said, too, that he admired Clinton and had voted for him in November.
It is often hard for a homeless man to share Clinton's optimism, Brown said, but he tries.
"Next Tuesday I got an interview for a construction job," he said. "Maybe that will amount to something."
His message to the president: "Give me a good, decent job and keep up the good work."
Unconventional Buttons
They were pinned to coats and hats and scarves -- Hillary and Bill Clinton, all teeth and goodwill; Socks the Cat, grinning, his head cocked to one side; the Clintons and Gores together forever.
But a handful of parade-goers refused to settle for the merely conventional button to show their Democratic fervor. Just across the street from the National Archives, Greg Rodgers, the serious-looking father of two young children, wore a different sort of button on his chest. It was Mrs. Clinton, known for her ever-changing hair, with yet another look: close-cropped and neon green. "Hillary Rodman Clinton. As Bad As She Wants to Be."
Don't get him wrong, Rodgers loves Mrs. Clinton. It's stodginess he disapproves of. "Even though we take our patriotism seriously, you've got to have a sense of humor," said Rodgers, who drove one hour from his Maryland home to make sure his children got a glimpse of the president. "It's funny."
Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
For Some, It Was a Business Day
ASHINGTON -- With all of official Washington and most of their colleagues focused exclusively on the inauguration ceremony and celebration, a group of senators took a few moments Monday to conduct a little business: The Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations voted unanimously to recommend the confirmation of Madeleine Albright as secretary of state.
The committee's Republican chairman, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, scheduled the vote Monday, despite the inauguration and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, to help ensure a speedy confirmation process and a smooth transition to replace Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
The members gathered in the committee's hearing room in the Capitol only moments before President Clinton arrived for his swearing-in. They voted after only a few words and no debate, a meeting so perfunctory that many of the committee's 18 members did not even bother to take off their hats and overcoats.
"This is the first and most visible example of bipartisanship," said Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the committee.
The vote cleared the way for the full Senate to approve Albright's nomination, which is expected to take place on Wednesday. Albright would become the 64th person -- and first woman -- to serve as secretary of state.
The vote came just before Christopher formally stepped down at 12:01 p.m. after four years as secretary of state. Christopher attended the inauguration as his last official act, said the state department's spokesman, Nicholas Burns.
Christopher's last day as secretary took an unfortunate turn Monday afternoon when he fell and broke his wrist as he cleaned out his home in Georgetown. He was treated at Georgetown University Hospital and released, a spokeswoman, Nancy Beck, said. The accident delayed his scheduled departure for Los Angeles, where he plans to rejoin his old law firm, O'Melveny & Myers.
View From Laundromat
As Bill Clinton gave his inaugural address from the steps of the Capitol, Marlene Young sat about three miles away at the Hamilton Laundromat on Georgia Avenue, her clothes whirling through the spin cycle along with Clinton's words.
"Everyone who can work will work, with today's permanent underclass part of tomorrow's growing middle class," the president said hopefully, his voice emanating from a television above a bank of washing machines.
"That's not true!" Ms. Young, a computer worker who has not been able to keep up payments on her daughter's college loans, shouted at the set as she picked through a bag of potato chips. "Companies are downsizing! Kids can't get a job!"
Still, she forgave Clinton. "What's going on is no reflection on him," she said. "Congress is in charge, and old Newty Newt is just up there having fun."
Shortly after Clinton was elected president in 1992, he stopped here at the shops on the 5200 block of Georgia Avenue as a sign that he cared about the inner city. While he has not been back, and only recently offered a plan to help the District of Columbia out of financial ruin, many residents said they felt good about him.
Ms. Young said she got a kick out of his lifestyle. "He doesn't hide his enjoyment in life," she laughed, prompting Dennis Townsend, 40, a groundskeeper at Howard University, to observe: "He doesn't have a lot of starch in his collar."
But their praise seemed suddenly thin when the television fixed on the image of Martin Luther King III in the inaugural audience.
"Oh, there's King's son," Ms. Young said, gasping slightly. "He looks just like his father."
"Hmmmmm," Townsend agreed, and all eyes in the laundromat lifted upward in silence.
A History Lesson
In the 1960s, Francine Freedman and Robert Schnapp marched on Washington with thousands of other young people, fists shaking, voices rising as they chanted their call for an end to the war in Vietnam.
Thirty years later the couple celebrated their patriotism as they sat perched on lawn chairs along the inaugural parade route with a thermos of hot chocolate and paper bags stuffed with turkey sandwiches, chocolate-chip cookies and carrot sticks.
"In the '60s people thought we weren't patriotic, because we were protesting," said Schnapp, 46, who analyzes the energy industries for the Department of Energy. "But we were. We always were. That's why we were marching, to make America better."
They never stopped marching, he said; they only slowed their pace. In the 1980s the couple brought their two children in strollers to pro-choice rallies in Washington. And on Sunday the whole family was back, sitting on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Schnapp carried a portable Sony Watchman television set so the family could watch Clinton give his inaugural address. His 13-year-old daughter, Robyn, counted the black limousines that cruised by. His 16-year-old son, Michael, snapped pictures for his photography class.
"It's important for our kids," said Ms. Freedman, a 46-year-old teacher, who lives in Reston, Va. with her family. "This is history. They'll look back on this."
In an Instant
Necks were craning and eyes were squinting as the call went out: "The president! It's the president!" Cheers erupted as the crowd in the bleachers peered intently at the black limousines with tinted windows rolling along Pennsylvania Avenue.
"I can't see! I can't see!" cried Sandra Cheek, a 37-year-old computer programmer from Washington.
"I saw Tipper's hair!" shrieked Julie Korn Batten, a 30-year-old sales manager from Atlanta, Ga. "I saw her blond hair shining through the window!"
Seconds later the historic moment was past.
"Well, we saw Carter walk down the street during his inauguration," Ms. Batten said philosophically. "That was a little more exciting."
Putting Politics Aside
Strolling hand in hand Sunday, Michael and Shea Faught, a couple from Arkansas no less, seemed a fitting tribute to the bipartisan ideal so popular in Washington these days.
"She loves Bill," said Faught, rolling his eyes just a touch. "I voted for Bob."
"He's a Republican all the way," Mrs. Faught said with a hint of exasperation. Yet somehow they have made their relationship work. They have even produced a child, Spencer, 6 years old and untainted, as yet, by partisan politics.
How do they do it? Faught explained that he simply allows Mrs. Faught to stump away in the living room, at the dinner table, in the bedroom, anywhere she wants. He nods yes again and again. She goes on and on.
"I always let her think she's right," Faught said. "President Clinton can weather a storm. I'll give him that."
Mrs. Faught chimed in: "He just lets me win."
Faught admitted that he felt a bit out of sorts, surrounded as he was on Monday by so many Clinton lovers, but his wife dragged him to Washington from Maryland and he had no choice.
Where Do You Park?
Imagine maneuvering a car on Inauguration Day past blocked-off streets, clogged roadways and cold, surly police officers. Now picture accomplishing the task in a vehicle that measures nearly three car lengths. Finally, throw in six to 10 well-to-do clients who don't particularly enjoy searching streets in bitter cold weather for their rented transportation.
"It's been crazy," said Walter Lee, who owns Lee's Executive Limousine Services and rents his stretch limousines for $75 an hour plus tax. "There are not enough parking facilities and then there are all these last-minute situations."
Typically, limousine drivers resort to handing out cellular phones and, as a last resort, quarters to clients so that they can call from the galas they are attending when they are ready to go home. Then they fashion a plan -- a pickup spot and escape route -- all the while hoping that they can squeeze past the legions of other sleek, black cars ready to do the same.
Their clients must find them. It would be impossible the other way around: too much fur and black swirling around.
"It's quite difficult," said Andres Rivera, a stretch-limousine driver who has nearly perfected this transportation tango between chauffeur and client.
All this business means lots of money for drivers, but also lots of stress.
Terufat Deneke, a chauffeur for the Radisson Barcelo Hotel, said he has been blessed this time around with understanding clients. "I have to drop them off far from where they want to go, and it's cold," Deneke said. "They are not happy, but they understand."
Anti-Abortion Ministry
Brian Scott Kemper came from Madison, Wis., to plant 3,300 small wooden crosses near the south side of the Washington Monument, "one for each of the children who die every day from surgical abortions," Kemper said. And he holds the Clintons largely responsible.
Kemper is director of operations for Collegians Activated to Liberate Life, an anti-abortion ministry to students, and he said that 100 students had joined him, starting at 5:30 a.m., to set the crosses in place.
The group had applied for the site because it faces the White House, Kemper said, and while the slope had a view of the White House perhaps half a mile away, it is doubtful that anyone there would be able to see the crosses, which were about a foot high and made of thin slats of white painted wood about an inch by a quarter-inch.
One of the participants in Kemper's effort, which was called the Cemetery of Innocents, was Ralph Palmer, who said he was from Greenbelt, Md. "Our tax money is funding the Clintonista regime," Palmer said, "and this administration has made the womb the most dangerous place in the world."
Homeless 'All-American'
The tourists who jumped off the buses that parked near the grate at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue looked at Antonio Brown with disgust. Some hurried away; others snapped pictures. Brown ignored them all, keeping his ears perked for the drummers that would signal Bill Clinton's arrival.
"They be looking at you like you're sick and crazy," said Brown, who sat on the sidewalk bundled in a green flannel jacket, the only coat he owns. "But I'm an all-American guy. I like to see my president when he's coming."
"Ha!" scoffed D'Angelo Brody, a scraggly homeless friend who said he was hung over from a night of heavy drinking.
"Clinton ain't doing nothing for me," said Brody, 25, who shares blankets and grate space with Brown. "To me it's just another day."
A Vietnam veteran, Brown said he spiraled into homelessness a year ago, after he lost his regular construction job. But he said he was excited about the day's festivities. He said, too, that he admired Clinton and had voted for him in November.
It is often hard for a homeless man to share Clinton's optimism, Brown said, but he tries.
"Next Tuesday I got an interview for a construction job," he said. "Maybe that will amount to something."
His message to the president: "Give me a good, decent job and keep up the good work."
Unconventional Buttons
They were pinned to coats and hats and scarves -- Hillary and Bill Clinton, all teeth and goodwill; Socks the Cat, grinning, his head cocked to one side; the Clintons and Gores together forever.
But a handful of parade-goers refused to settle for the merely conventional button to show their Democratic fervor. Just across the street from the National Archives, Greg Rodgers, the serious-looking father of two young children, wore a different sort of button on his chest. It was Mrs. Clinton, known for her ever-changing hair, with yet another look: close-cropped and neon green. "Hillary Rodman Clinton. As Bad As She Wants to Be."
Don't get him wrong, Rodgers loves Mrs. Clinton. It's stodginess he disapproves of. "Even though we take our patriotism seriously, you've got to have a sense of humor," said Rodgers, who drove one hour from his Maryland home to make sure his children got a glimpse of the president. "It's funny."
Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
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