By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 21, 2001 ; Page A01
They went to the Capitol yesterday to participate in that great democratic ritual, what President Bush, in his inaugural address, called the "peaceful transfer of authority." Peaceful, it was.
In a drizzly gloom, as Bush assumed the presidency, all the participants played their roles. They applauded. They shook hands. They said generous things about each other.
But as Bush began his presidency, he swore his oath before an uncomfortable gathering of the central characters not only of his life but of the extraordinary conclusion to the bitterly close election last year that had brought him to this stage.
His father, the former president whose defeat eight years ago he had avenged. His vanquished election rival, Al Gore, who sat glumly throughout, fulfilling his obligation and nothing more. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, whose vote was part of the 5 to 4 Supreme Court majority that essentially handed the election to the incoming president.
And looming over it all was Bill Clinton, whose personal behavior in office was a subtext of the election and who publicly questioned the legitimacy of Bush's victory because of the high court's intervention.
It was the first time in 40 years that a father had lived long enough to watch his son become president, and only the second time in American history that a father had been followed in the country's highest office by his son. Former president George Bush looked proud. The new President Bush seemed overcome, twice breaking into tears.
Rarely in history does ceremony require the gathering of such a strange tableau of personal rivalry and family bonds. But it was a fitting coda to a period dominated by the constitutional tests of impeachment followed by an electoral deadlock of the sort not endured by the country since the 19th century.
Even the bit players added to the awkwardness of the situation. The master of ceremonies was Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who voted to convict Clinton and led the unsuccessful effort to keep Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, out of the Senate. The new Sen. Clinton herself, who will be a thorn in Bush's side for the next four years and may challenge him for the presidency, was also on the stage yesterday, naturally.
Also on hand were Dan Quayle and Elizabeth Dole, two of Bush's early rivals for the GOP nomination last year, and the new secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, whose popularity exceeds the new president's. By the new president's side was his wife, Laura, who last week joined Bush's mother, Barbara, in expressing abortion views at odds with his own.
Three sentences into his inaugural address, Bush offered a perfunctory, one-sentence tribute to his predecessor "for his service to our nation." Bush continued on -- but stopped when he noticed what the crowd was doing.
They were applauding. For Clinton.
Clinton closed out his presidency not just with a farewell speech but with a farewell speech, a radio address, a deal to avoid future prosecution, and yet another farewell speech from Andrews Air Force Base. Arriving in New York, he took the stage once again at Kennedy International Airport, before the inaugural parade in Washington had even ended. Hillary Clinton gave a speech that sounded like a 2004 campaign kickoff.
Perhaps nothing conveyed the mood of yesterday's inaugural as much as the weather. Forty years ago, John F. Kennedy took the oath of office in brilliant sunshine. Twenty years ago, Ronald Reagan assumed office on a warm and pleasant day. Yesterday, George W. Bush became president in a wet fog.
Spectators and guests sloshed through thick mud on the Capitol grounds. The Washington monument appeared ghostly through the gloom.
"This is like summer!" exclaimed New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, watching the proceedings from a choice spot and wearing a fedora. "If it stays this way we'll be very lucky."
Giuliani explained. "I thought the weather would be much worse," he said. "It's all in the expectations."
If low expectations are the goal, Bush got off to a fine start yesterday. As Bush spoke of "a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character," demonstrators in the distance could be heard responding with neither civility nor compassion.
Police sirens, helicopters and the distant roar of demonstrators on Pennsylvania Avenue punctuated Bush's address. The police and the Secret Service responded with a massive show of force that kept thousands of spectators away from the inaugural parade route.
In the best days of his presidential campaign, Bush and his advisers said he could be another President William McKinley, who realigned American politics a century ago by creating a broad Republican majority. Instead, Bush came to power more like Rutherford B. Hayes, who, like Bush, lost the popular vote but won the electoral college vote after a dispute.
Bush prefers the example of Thomas Jefferson, who also survived a disputed election; Bush cited Jefferson in his first speech after Gore bowed out, and returned to the man from Monticello yesterday. Jefferson, Bush declared, "would know" the themes of courage and dignity Bush was discussing. But Bush, in digging up the early 19th century, would like to avoid becoming John Quincy Adams, who survived a disputed election and, like his father, became a one-termer.
Whatever the model, Bush immediately saw signs of division. While the new president pledged to build "a single nation," demonstrators on the Mall waved signs saying, "Hail to the Thief" and "Rehnquist 5, America 0." Bush supporters responded by buying T-shirts declaring "W Stands for Winner" and "Goodbye Clinton Party Animals."
Even the crowd attending the inauguration was divided. The seated spectators, many of them Bush guests, cheered vigorously for Rehnquist but gave former president Jimmy Carter only a smattering of applause. The emergence of Hillary Clinton, Tipper Gore, Senate Democratic Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) and House Democratic Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) was met with silence in the good seats, but a big roar from the crowd in the distance up the Mall. The spectators in the good seats got their turn to cheer next, with the appearance of Laura Bush; when the president-elect emerged, there were whoops from men in ten-gallon hats.
The demonstrators' chants in the background gave an ironic twist to the inaugural weekend's theme, "Celebrating America's Spirit Together." That slogan was on the license plates of limousines double parked outside the Mayflower Hotel yesterday morning. The Metro was jammed with the less elite spectators, who contended with mud on the Capitol grounds.
Police were out in massive force. Crew-cut men in olive overcoats and menacing black armbands checked attendees' passes. Elaborate fencing and security, designed to keep the demonstrators out, also had the effect of keeping the spectators from leaving after the ceremony. The spectators, trying to leave, climbed over chairs, breaking some, and crushed temporary fences.
At the end of most every campaign speech last year, Bush spoke about his future inauguration. Raising his right hand, he said he would not only take the oath but also pledge to "uphold the honor and dignity of the office." On the big day, Bush stuck to the oath Rehnquist read.
