By Mike Allen and Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 21, 2001 ; Page A01
George Walker Bush was sworn in as the nation's 43rd president yesterday and, with a call for compassion and civility in public life, pledged to "work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity."
The solemn, tradition-bound transfer of power unfolded beneath gray skies on a raw January day as the 54-year-old former Texas governor, his eyes misty with tears, took the oath of office that had been administered 12 years earlier to his father, former president George Bush, who looked on proudly.
Weaving themes and issues that he invoked during his campaign through his 14-minute inaugural address, Bush called on Americans to be "citizens, not spectators" and promised "to bring the values of our history to the care of our times."
The day was filled with emotion for the Bush family and its supporters, and Bush struggled not to reveal the deep feelings of the moment. A tear rolled from his eyes after the oath was administered by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and, a second time, at the conclusion of his speech, when he hugged his father.
On the nearby rain-soaked streets of Washington, there were also vivid reminders of the emotions that were stirred by the heated campaign and the marathon count of votes in Florida that finally gave Bush the presidency. Thousands of sign-waving protesters, some chanting "Hail to the thief," roamed the streets, which were patrolled by about 7,000 officers from more than a dozen law enforcement agencies.
But at the Capitol, the ceremony proceeded smoothly as first Richard B. Cheney took the oath of office as vice president, and then Bush, his voice firm, recited the hallowed words promising to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Vice President Al Gore, defeated by Bush in a bitter contest decided by the Supreme Court, glumly faced Bush on the West Portico of the Capitol. Outgoing President Bill Clinton, the man who ousted the new president's father from the White House in 1992, and the outgoing first lady and new Democratic senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, sat near the elder Bush and his wife, Barbara.
Bush was accompanied by his wife, Laura, and their 19-year-old twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, and Cheney by his wife, Lynne, and their daughters, Elizabeth and Mary. In addition to Bush's parents, the ceremony was attended by former president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.
Bush's daughters held back when their parents went up for the oath-taking. Clinton and Gore motioned to them to go up to the podium, and Clinton helped position them behind their mother.
Before Bush left the Capitol, he signed papers formally nominating his Cabinet members, and the Senate quickly confirmed seven of them with a single voice vote during an unusual Saturday session. Bush, following a tactic of former president Ronald Reagan, sought to undo many of Clinton's 11th-hour regulations and executive orders by suspending their publication in the Federal Register, which is required for them to take effect.
Bush started his day at Blair House at 6:30 a.m. with coffee with his mother and two of his brothers, Marvin and Jeb, the Florida governor, while their father exercised. Then the president-to-be read from the books of Genesis and Matthew.
Bush, Cheney and their wives were driven to a prayer service at St. John's Church, across Lafayette Park from the White House. After that, the motorcade stopped at the White House, where the couples were greeted by Clinton, Gore and their wives.
"Good morning, senator," Laura Bush said to her predecessor as first lady.
Throughout the morning and into the early afternoon, Clinton appeared to be almost buoyant. Before the arrival of the Bushes at the White House, the outgoing president and first lady were spotted dancing in the foyer of the executive mansion.
On his way to the Clintons' new residence in New York, Clinton made a final stop and speech to his aides and supporters at Andrews Air Force Base. "I left the White House," he said, "but I'm still here." Gore and his family returned to their home in Arlington.
Bush began his speech by thanking Clinton "for his service to our country" and Gore "for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace."
After Bush took the oath, three officials briskly removed rain covers from the TelePrompTer equipment, as if unwrapping a fresh new oratory. Bush spoke with a confidence and precision that had so often eluded him on the campaign trail and in his occasional public appearances since Election Day.
In his address, Bush mentioned a number of issues that he stressed during the campaign. He pledged to "reclaim America's schools, before ignorance and apathy claim more lives," to reform Social Security and Medicare, cut taxes, build up the country's military capability and "confront weapons of mass destruction," a reference to his plan to deploy a ballistic missile defense system.
"The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world, by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom," Bush said in the only section of the speech that dealt with foreign policy. "We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth."
But Bush's main theme centered on his pledge to conduct himself with "civility, courage, compassion and character" -- each word an echo from his campaign and its aftermath -- as he explicitly appealed to those who did not support him, including the 90 percent of African American voters who backed Gore.
"While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise, even the justice, of our own country," said Bush, who wore a dark overcoat against the day's chill. "The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools, and hidden prejudice, and the circumstances of their birth. And sometimes our differences run so deep it seems we share a continent but not a country.
"We do not accept this and will not allow it."
Since Election Day, Bush, who lost the popular vote to Gore and won a narrow electoral college majority only after a bitter series of legal disputes, has often spoken of civility and his determination to unite the country.
"Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment," he said yesterday. "It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment."
Bush said courage was necessary even in a time of peace and prosperity. "We must show courage in a time of blessing," he said, "by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations."
Bush portrayed himself during the campaign as a "compassionate conservative" and he invoked that theme again yesterday, including his call to make more use of "faith based" private efforts to improve social conditions. "Compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government," he said.
He also raised the theme of "character," which during the campaign Bush used implicitly to contrast himself with Clinton's personal scandals. "America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected," he said.
Bush added: "What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort, to defend needed reforms against easy attacks, to serve your nation beginning with your neighbor. I ask you to be citizens -- citizens, not spectators."
His effort to block Clinton's final actions has become something of a tradition when control of the White House changes parties. Clinton had blocked several of former president Bush's last-minute executive orders, and Reagan had used a moratorium on Federal Register entries to block scores of executive orders Carter issued.
Among the Clinton edicts that Bush suspended were directives for Medicare providers, environmental restrictions on runoff from animal feeding operations, and Clinton's designation yesterday of Governor's Island in New York Harbor as a national monument.
Bush's directive was issued by White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who also imposed a hiring freeze until job candidates are approved by the administration.
Bush's first action as president, announced at 1:27 p.m., was to issue ethical standards for his appointees.
He also proclaimed Sunday a "National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving," to honor the bicentennial of the first transfer of power between political parties, when Thomas Jefferson took the oath in 1801.
Bush and his wife dropped by all eight official inaugural balls and were back at the White House before midnight, an hour ahead of schedule. Bush joked at each stop about his rusty dance steps.
At the Texas and Wyoming ball, he recalled that he had danced for about 30 seconds at his gubernatorial balls and added, "My pledge is, I'll spend more than 30 seconds dancing tonight." Then he checked his watch in the midst of the box step and declared at the last balls he had danced 10 minutes total. At the Florida ball, he thrilled the crowd by dancing (briefly) with his daughters.
Early yesterday afternoon, the Senate confirmed seven of Bush's Cabinet nominees: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
In taking the oath of office, Bush joined John Quincy Adams as only the second man to follow his father into the presidency. His father was the first man to see his son sworn in as president since Joseph P. Kennedy witnessed the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
From their vantage point high along the Capitol's West Front, the Bush family and the others could peer toward the Mall into a sea of dark coats, stocking hats and umbrellas, lit up by thousands of flashing cameras. In the ticketed seats closer in, spectators rustled in their disposable rain slickers.
As a muted but insistent reminder of Bush's tortured path to the White House, dozens of handmade signs with slogans such as "Coup" were sprinkled among the crowds in subway stations and on streets near the Capitol. But most people on the streets appeared to be either Bush supporters or simply interested citizens, among them a father who leaned over on the gridlocked stairs of the Capitol South Metro station to remind his children to soak it all in so they can tell their grandchildren.
Outside the Supreme Court, yellow police tape and officers with long batons kept everyone off the steps, but a small and shivering band of demonstrators stood on the sidewalk with signs like "Selected Not Elected," "Crime Scene" and "Gore By 500,000, Bush By 1," a reference to the 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision that stopped vote recounting in Florida on Dec. 9.
Bush did not refer directly to the closeness of the Nov. 7 election and the Florida litigation in his speech. But later, at the traditional inaugural lunch in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, he addressed the doubts head-on. "Expectations in the country is we can't get anything done," Bush said. "People say, 'Well, gosh, the election was so close, nothing will happen, except for finger-pointing and name-calling and bitterness.' "
Bush added, "I'm here to tell the country that things will get done, that we're going to rise above expectations, that both Republicans and Democrats will come together to do what's right for America."
Staff writers Charles Babington, Juliet Eilperin, Eric Pianin and Clarence Williams contributed to this report.
