The Warrior-Poets: Mr. Wolverine Goes to Washington, Part 1

Part 1: You may ask yourself, how did I get here?

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Hectic beginning. Missed the Michigan Flyer, the bus that was supposed to take me to the airport. Had to call a taxi, which took 20 minutes to get to where I was and 40 minutes to get from there to the airport, $50. At least 16 cars had driven either off the road or into each other.

Somehow I made the flight. It helped that it was supposed to leave 20 minutes after I thought it would.

One of the ladies behind the counter complimented me on my scarf, saying it had "inspired" her to make one just like it for her son(?) who goes to U-M.

They said the flight was supposed to be fairly smooth. With the weather as it was on the ground, I had a little trouble believing the pilot. And of course, we hit a pocket of turbulence as soon as he said we probably would not.

It took more time to load the plane, taxi, de-ice, and taxi to the runway than it did to actually fly from Detroit to Washington.

The nice thing about flying into Reagan is that you fly right along the Potomac, and you see the National Mall, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian, the Capitol, and the White House. The other side of the plane sees the Pentagon.

The airport itself is not so nice. It's old and it's ugly and I don't mind in the least bit that they named it after Ronald Reagan.

Because I was late getting into DTW, even though I made the flight, my bag did not. A handful of other people and I waited at the baggage claim for the next flight from Detroit to come in. Again, this took longer than the actual flight.

There was another group of people who came in late for various reasons staying at my hotel. (There were 5,000 people at the University Presidential Inaugural Conference (UPIC) spread over six hotels.)

And our group was horribly late. So late that we got to our hotel after Tim Russert's son started speaking at another hotel. So late that once we got to the other hotel, registration was closed and Russert had finished speaking. Luckily, there were some hors d'ouevres left. We gnoshed, returned, and hung out.

Our hotel, the Grand Hyatt, is luxe.

I mean grand-piano-on-its-own-island-in-the-atrium-fountain luxe.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

I didn't sleep well the night before. I would have had only five hours of sleep even if I wasn't tossing and turning.

Got up at 4:45, breakfast started at 5:15. Buses to the University of Maryland started at 6.

They packed us into the Cole Activites Building, having covered the basketball court with astroturf and set up a stage and chairs above that. The chairs and most of the seating section were filled. There were seven or eight thousand there, including the junior scholars. (The middle-schoolers and high-schoolers each had their own little conference.)

"You've got to have people who'll tell you you have no clothes on...That didn't come out right." ~Colin Powell

Colin Powell spoke a little about the election, but mostly about the qualities of a good leader. He was in Hong Kong when the results were coming in. He said that he was so overwhelmed with emotion, he had to sit down. He hoped he wouldn't cry all through Inauguration Day.

The speech was mostly interesting, at least it served to wake me up. Q & A was all right; most of the questions were thoughtful, asking about State, Darfur, Bush, and a youth program that he spearheaded. The bookends were terrible: asking about his shortcomings and the qualities he valued in a leader. (Dude, didn't you listen to the speech?)

From there, back to the Marriott for panels. We went to the Matalin-Carville one, an interesting bipartisan couple. (We were sitting in a weird spot; sorry, no pictures.) They were both funny, and Carville particularly exhorted us to participate actively in the political process.

Carville recounted a story where they were leaving their daughters at home to go somewhere. Matalin was telling them to be good. One of their daughters, "already exhibiting conservative tendencies," said, "If you give me a dollar, I'll be good." Matalin, without missing a beat, retorted, "Why can't you just be good for nothing like your father?"

Q & A brought up electoral reform. Said Carville, "Who left Iowa and New Hampshire in charge?" His answer? "Blow it up." Besides dynamiting the primary system, he suggested exploding the debate format, oddly supporting the unmoderated, town-hall debates that Obama spurned during the campaign.

We left the Marriott early, took the Metro back to the hotel, changed, and headed out. We ate at an overpriced seafood restaurant and headed to the opening inaugural festivities.

We ended up in front of the videoscreen between the Washington Monument and the WWII Memorial, a full six blocks from the main event at the Lincoln Memorial.

We saw Herbie Hancock, Garth Brooks, Forrest Whitaker, Usher, Stevie Wonder, Shakira, Jack Black, Samuel L. Jackson and U2 before Obama gave his speech. I didn't realize he was going to give a speech here. For some reason, our little group of people started to leave halfway through the speech so I missed the end of it.

After the speech, we spotted a few religious fanatic protesters who admonished us to reject Obama and accept Jesus if we really wanted to embrace change; condemned "child-killing women", "porno addicts", and "Mormons" to hell; and warned that homosexuality was a threat to national security. Half of us went off to harangue them, while the other half headed off to the Lincoln Memorial.

No-go. Completely locked down for the Inauguration.

(On the way, I was accosted by a reporter from the Detroit News who wanted a Michigander's take on the festivities. My Michigan coat, scarf and hat are a dead giveaway. This was the same reporter who asked me questions when I was getting on the plane in Detroit-Metro.)

So we made our way back to the hotel, being thwarted by Washington's odd street layout, the fact that Pennsylvania Ave. was blocked off, (The stopped crowd was claustrophobically terrifying. It felt like I was in the scene in I Am Legend where everyone's trying to get off Manhattan before they close down the island.) and my inability to find our hotel on the DC map. I found the nearby Metro stop and like newly blinded people groping about, we were able to find the hotel.