WASHINGTON — Barack Obama stood at the threshold of the White House on Monday, summoning fellow Americans to join him in service as tens of thousands flocked to the nation’s capital to celebrate his inauguration as the first black president.
“Tomorrow we will come together as one people on the same Mall where Dr. King’s dream echoes still,” said the president-elect, invoking the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the national holiday in his honor.
The 47-year-old former senator takes office at noon today.
For Obama, the day was stripped of partisan politics, and he ended it by lavishing praise on Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, his opponent in last fall’s campaign. In remarks prepared for a dinner in honor of his onetime rival, he called the former Vietnam prisoner of war a “rare and courageous public servant,” who places country before party.
“Let us strive always to find that common ground, and to defend together those common ideals, for it is the only way we can meet the very big and very serious challenges that we face right now,” said Obama, who also arranged to attend dinners for Vice President-elect Joseph Biden and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican.
For the most part, the day went according to a script designed to emphasize the theme of community service.
Obama issued a statement declaring, “King’s was a life lived in loving service to others. As we honor that legacy, it’s not a day just to pause and reflect — it’s a day to act.”
He began his day with a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he visited 14 veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Then his motorcade headed for the Sasha Bruce House, a facility for homeless or runaway teens, where he grabbed a paint roller and helped volunteers who were fixing up rooms.
“We can’t allow any idle hands,” he said. “Everybody’s got to be involved.”
Later, Obama joined his wife at a high school where they greeted 300 volunteers who were writing letters to U.S. troops and doing other volunteer work.
The president-elect thanked them and said, “If we’re waiting for somebody else to do something, it never gets done. We’re going to have to take responsibility, all of us. This is not just a one-day affair.”
Referring to his imminent new job, he said, “I am making a commitment to you as your next president that we are going to make government work.”
Obama’s public events recalled his time as a community service organizer in Chicago, in the years before he entered politics. An Illinois state senator a mere four years ago, he won election to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and announced his candidacy for the White House in early 2007.
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