How quaint it seems, looking back.
Eighteen months ago, we were told newly elected Barack H. Obama, super genius, mustn’t wait for Inauguration Day. To save the country, he had to take office NOW! There was no telling how far the nation might sink, absent the immediate application of his nuance, charisma and intellect.
* “Why wait until late January to turn the Oval Office over to a new president elected in early November?” USA Today founder Al Neuharth hyperventilated. He called the delay “too long in these modern times when crises need the earliest possible attention.”
* Over at PBS, Obama enthusiast Gwen Ifill fretted, “Is there any way to look at this and think to yourself that maybe what people are beginning to say is that this president-elect should be president now?”
* Peter Baker of The New York Times despaired that the lapse from election to swearing in was “such a long period in a hyperactive 24/7 fast-moving culture that we have today.”