Anderson Was Also THE News

The View From the Mall, Rick Warren, and Transportation Issues
We saw a couple motorcades, but not THE motorcade, and also Anderson Cooper, moving swiftly toward a locked gate and presumably to the CNN outdoor studio. He was as smiley as the rest of us. And, he has the whitest hair I've ever seen.

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[Campbell Brown] handed off to Anderson Cooper, looking weary from anchoring the day's coverage, and called it a "rare moment of renewal and rejoicing." Cooper noted they were scheduled to be on until 3 a.m.

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CNN rolls with punches for inauguration


There aren't any changes, things are just going to be late. The president-elect is announced, then steps out on to the Capitol platform to a resounding cheer. CNN split screens Obama along with the crowd in the National Mall, and switches to live scenes in Memphis, Pasadena, Chicago, as well as growing crowds in Harlem and Times Square here in New York. But despite the cheer, things don't change: It's 11:45 a.m., when it should have been 11:34 a.m.

The question hangs in the control room, though it isn't addressed on air yet. Does the oath of office have to be administered by noon, and if it isn't exactly on time, who is president? Feist, for what won't be the first time today, pulls up a copy of the Constitution on his computer screen.

"Absolutely, Obama becomes president at noon" regardless of the oath, Feist discovers. The word filters down to the anchors, who report it. And quietly Borhman and Feist have readied a plan to show, not just tell, viewers as soon after noon as possible. While Warren gives the invocation shortly after noon, CNN puts up on the screen that Obama is, even without the oath, now constitutionally the president of the U.S. Delicately, nearly sotto voce in between events, Blitzer tells the viewers the same thing.

There's a little bit of tension, and quizzical faces, when the oath of office is finally administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. In what will never be a Kodak moment, Roberts and Obama fell off script in that age-old tradition. Roberts mangled the oath and apparently Obama, who had memorized it, was derailed as well. In the control room, once again, the copy of the Constitution is opened.

"He messed it up," CNN's Anderson Cooper said, referring to Roberts about 30 minutes after it happened. Blitzer noted that Roberts had only that one job to do the whole day then asked legal affairs correspondent Jeffrey Toobin what he thought.

"I almost fell out of my chair," Toobin said. "It's only a 35-word oath."

But there was brighter moments captured by the cameras as well, including the Obamas' 10-year-old daughter Malia capturing the scene from her vantage point by digital camera. She even asked Biden to help her take a photograph or two, and the vice president complied. That scene wasn't lost on the control room either, especially not when the network had been asking viewers to send in their own camera and cell-phone photos of what they called "The Moment" of Inauguration.

"Someone ask her to send that photo to CNN's the Moment," someone in the control room jokes.

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Wolf Blitzer Steals Space Heaters, And Other Assorted DC Media Madness
• Tammy Haddad caught up with CNN's Anderson Cooper yesterday who's co-anchoring his first Inauguration. Cooper: "I spent 9 hours on the roof at the Newseum...and Wolf Blitzer steals all the heaters, this is a little known secret."

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CNN's Inauguration Day Photosynth Compiles Crowdsourced Photos in 3D (But It's No Hologram!)

Wolf has been somewhat confusedly hyping CNN's "Photosynth moment," much to Anderson Cooper's chagrin, and behold, here it is, presented by CNN's intrepid multitouch whiz John King. Wait, there's Oprah! UDATED

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Live from DC: E Pluribus Unum

It’s easy to feel unimportant. Much like the disenchanted voter who feels that his or her singular vote is worthless in relation to the masses, so too does standing in a sea of millions of onlookers. After all, we’re just two tourists from San Francisco here to witness history.

But when Anderson Cooper walked past us in a crowd and only a few people noticed and cheered, we got the feeling that we’re all equally unimportant and therefore we all can claim a certain amount of celebrity.

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What Channel Should You Watch the Inaugural On?

Meanwhile! CNN has Anderson Cooper (yay!) and Wolf Blitzer (argh)! And their usual cabinet of 500,000 experts and commentators and pundits. Boring. Oh, here's Campbell Brown. She promises "lots of new technology" showing up later. This means: holograms.

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Design On A $150 Million Budget

First, the motion controls necessary for parting the clouds and allowing that crowning beam of sunshine to beat down on our newly chosen presidential champion as he takes the Oath of Office (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/pioaths.html) is one reference design that I’d love to see. And honestly, I can’t wait to hear Anderson Cooper critique the sunshine for not being yellow enough.

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Cheer up Obamaphile, the Inauguration is Going to Suck

As a D.C. native, the past couple weeks have been spent fielding cryptically obtuse text messages. Invariably, the sender asks a very non-specific question, about which I'm supposed to provide an answer. It reads, simply, "Are you going?"

Of course, you, me, Anderson Cooper, and everyone else in the Free World knows what they're referring to: Obaguration Day! Living history! The day we're all hoping won't live in infamy!

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Your Obama Inaugural Liveblog

11:29 The whole thing is running late, of course, but Barack Obama magically becomes President at noon even if he hasn't been sworn in yet. Anderson Cooper: "Not every President has a poet." Good to know.

11:05 Hah Anderson Cooper just said the only times the three branches of government all play a role, at the same time, is inaugurals and impeachments. He has been watching Schoolhouse Rock!

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D.C. BLOG:
'I am just in awe'


A little airtime
6:20 a.m. | As hundreds of thousands of people continued to stream on to the mall, CNN cameras panned the crowd. Onlookers screamed and cheered for the camera while some chanted, "Yes we can!" and "O-ba-ma!" One woman who spotted the lights, cheering crowd and CNN satellite truck ran over and screamed: "Is it Anderson?!" referring to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

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