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Sunday, January 20, 2013

David Koon: On the Obama Inaugural road trip

Posted by Max Brantley on Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 12:05 PM

THE MAN: David Koon writes below of his journey to the inaugural. But Central High students are already there and guess who passed by them today as they visited the Marine memorial? Principal Nancy Rousseau shared the shot.

'THE MAN': David Koon writes below of his journey to the inaugural. But Central High students are already there and guess who passed by them today as they visited the Arlington National Cemetery? Principal Nancy Rousseau shared the shot.

Report from David Koon, riding with the M.L. King Commission to the Obama inaugural:

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA — A bus at night is no place to be — black hallway where the minutes shuffle, punctuated by the pained little noises of sleepers and the turbo wine of the big diesel engine out back. There is nothing to see — nothing to report — other than the occasional spray of city lights, or cars swimming dreamily into and out of the glare from the running lamps of the bus. Dawn, however, finds us in Virginia, a fair country of rolling hills, dozing under snow. It looks like heaven.

We loaded the six buses at 5 p.m. yesterday, were gone by 6. We have driven straight through to here, other than two brief, sleepy layovers in pitch-black rest stops, where rigs dozed and grumbled alongside our buses in the dark. We are all backsore, necksore. I have spent the past 12 hours crammed into the very last seat of the very last bus — bus #6. I had a pair of seats to myself for awhile and sprawled like a rajah, but we picked up more passengers in Forrest City, and since then I have been pressed in closer than I ever wanted to be to Arkansas Times photographer Brian Chilson. He and I will be sick of one another by the time our feet are back in Little Rock, that's for sure.

My traveling companions — most of them black, some old enough to require a cane, others young enough that they're clearly skipping elementary school to take this trip — are as tired of traveling as we are, as sick of junk food as we are. But this is the burden they have accepted in order to stand on the doorstep of history; to — as one of them told me yesterday — breathe the same air as Barack Obama on the day he becomes America's first black two-term president.

We are getting close now. We are going to see it happen. We are going to see The Man.

Tags: President Obama, Central High School, inauguration

        
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Arkansas Blog

Sunday, January 20, 2013

David Koon: On the Obama Inaugural road trip

Posted by Max Brantley on Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 12:05 PM

Speaking of...

Ernie Dumas this week compares the fulminations about Benghazi, which Republicans are attempting to make an impeachment-worthy scandal of minute differences in post-attack talking points, with the cooked-up Whitewater investigations. /more/

Since it's customary to blame President Obama for any and everything unpleasant — see U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton (Club for Growth, D.C.) and the Boston bombings — should he also get some credit for positives? /more/

U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton of the Club for Growth was right proud the other day of his rush to make political hay of the Boston bombing by lumping it with some other incidents that he said represented failure of counter-terrorism efforts of the Obama administration. /more/

CNN reports: A letter to President Obama that was intercepted at an off-site facility has tested positive for ricin, the FBI says. /more/

The Little Rock police announced today that Thomas Randall McDonald, 55, an assistant principal at Central High School, had been named in five misdemeanor harassment charges involving students at the school. /more/

Another desultory morning from the jet-lagged Arkansas Blog: Nonetheless: * MARCH MADNESS: The Arkansas House and Senate played a basketball game for charity last night. /more/

Comments (8)

More by Max Brantley

I thought he'd already announced two or three times already. But in case you missed it, Curtis Coleman will announce for governor at 11:30 a.m.

John Lyon of Stephens Media examines at some length today a simmering topic in the gun nut community that is of general interest.

Event Calendar

Re: UPDATE: FBI confirms State Treasurer Martha Shoffner's arrest, apparently for official misconduct

Re: UPDATE: FBI confirms State Treasurer Martha Shoffner's arrest, apparently for official misconduct

The shoe drops. This mug shot of Democratic state Auditor Martha Shoffner appeared on the Pulaski County sheriff's office jail intake page late this afternoon.

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