Chatological Humor: The Dawning of a New Error

aka Tuesdays With Moron

Special Inaugural Week Day and Time: Wednesday at Noon ET.

Gene Weingarten's humor column, Below the Beltway, appears every Sunday in The Washington Post magazine. It is syndicated nationally by the Washington Post Writers Group.

At one time or another, Below the Beltway has managed to offend persons of both sexes as well as individuals belonging to every religious, ethnic, regional, political and socioeconomic group. If you know of a group we have missed, please write in and the situation will be promptly rectified. "Rectified" is a funny word.

On Tuesdays at noon, Weingarten is online to take your questions and abuse. He will chat about anything. Although this chat is updated regularly throughout the week, it is not and never will be a "blog," even though many persons keep making that mistake. One reason for the confusion is the Underpants Paradox: Blogs, like underpants, contain "threads," whereas this chat contains no "threads" but, like underpants, does sometimes get funky and inexcusable.

This Week's Poll.

Not chat day? Visit the Gene Pool.

Important, secret note to readers: The management of The Washington Post apparently does not know this chat exists, or it would have been shut down long ago. Please do not tell them. Thank you.

Weingarten is also the author of "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death" and co-author of "I'm with Stupid," with feminist scholar Gina Barreca and "Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs" with photographer Michael Williamson.

New to Chatological Humor? Read the FAQ.

P.S. If composing your questions in Microsoft Word please turn off the Smart Quotes functionality. I haven't the time to edit them out. -- Liz

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Gene Weingarten: Good afternoon and welcome to an inauguration-only episode of Chatological Humor.

We need to fully expose here -- because in the heady rush of enforced national exhilaration it may exist nowhere else -- the two left feet upon which this new administration launched itself; namely, the excruciating minute-long danse macabre between Barack Obama and John Roberts in trying to stammer out the first 20 words of the presidential oath of office. You knew it was bad, but without a lushly annotated transcript, it is hard to fathom how two people, working in concert like one-armed blind men trying to castrate a cat, can manage to so thoroughly mangle words, syntax, and timing. Some blogs have provided purported transcripts, but they didn't catch the whole gaudy thing.

For the record, these are the 20 words that SHOULD have been spoken, and spoken in a certain order: "I, Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States¿"

Here is what actually happened:

Roberts: I, Barack Hussein Obama

Obama: I, Bara... *

Roberts: do solemnly swear**

Obama: I, Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear

Roberts: that I will execute the office of President to the United States, faithfully***

Obama: that I will execute ... (pauses) ****

Roberts: The off. Faithfully. The pres. The office of president of the United States. *****

Obama: The office of President of the United States faithfully. ******

Footnotes:

*Okay, Barack jumped the gun.

**Roberts had a decision to make. He made the wrong one. He should have LET Barack jump the gun, and no one would have been wiser, but no, he interrupted, bulling on in the cadence and phrasing he had prepared...

***Note that in addition to misplacing the word "faithfully," Roberts also uses the wrong preposition.

****Instead of just saying the words correctly (he obviously knows them) Obama charitably but unwisely allows Roberts to try to correct himself.

*****With stunning incapacity, Roberts fails self-correction, though does, finally, get "faithfully" in the right syntactic position.

******Understandably, Obama misses the cue in all the stammering, effectively throws up his hands and declares "whatever," saying the oath wrong.

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My house is eight blocks from The Capitol, and I walked there yesterday at 5:30 a.m. to try to gauge how huge the crowds would be. There were hundreds of persons heading in the same direction. When I got there, I turned around to go back home and could not move. The crowd behind me had swelled, filling Independence Ave.; I had to sidle and elbow my way home, at 5:30 in the morning. It took a half hour.

Dave Barry's staying with me, because he got invited to march in the inaugural parade with the Lawn Rangers, the world-famous precision lawnmower team from Arcola, Ill. I hope you all caught this performance on TV (CNN, for one, covered it) because never again perhaps will we witness the spectacle of a graceful president and first lady cracking up watching a bunch of extremely uncoordinated white suburban doofuses attempting and failing to execute simultaneous maneuvers with lawnmowers , brooms, and toilet plungers.

Some observations on the events of the day:

1. Once again, it falls to us at Chatological Humor to find the real story behind the purported big story of the day, which we did indeed find at 5:30 a.m. out there near the U.S. Capitol and gloriously spreading beyond as far as the eye can see. I have gotten no loose or firm numbers yet (haha) but I believe I can declare that there has never before been a larger assemblage of porta-potties in one place at one time.

2. Is there any song with a lamer title than "My Country 'Tis Of Thee¿"?

3. "When our tanks will be beaten into tractors"?

4. Was anyone else afraid that Aretha's great hat was gonna fall off?

5. Chatological humor wishes to thank Jill Biden for wearing skirt and boots and looking darn fine doing so. Which leads me, pretty directly if with some trepidation, to today's INSTAPOLL: Men | Women!

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I want to thank Colin Schatz for alertly capturing this screen-grab of a headline in The Post online last week; it lasted about 15 minutes before it was caught.

--

Okay. The Clip of the Day, from yesterday's Daily Show.

Finally, please take TODAY'S POLL. I am going to be explaining the scientifically correct answers fairly shortly, so you can see your errors.

Okay, let's go. Let's try to keep this mostly inaugural-based; I'm answering a few old questions in the queue and will throw them out there.

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Bay Area, CA: Gene,

So I have tried and failed miserably my whole life to understand poetry. So I turn to you to tell me how the "Inaugural Poem" was.

More importantly Jill Biden looked damm fine rocking the boots and dress.

Gene Weingarten: It started and ended with terribly precious lines. In the middle was some interesting imagery; then it flirted dangerously with the pretentiously nonsensical, did a brief dance with complete awfulness with the line about love being the mightiest word. All in all, kind of interesting.

The worst thing about it was the way she delivered it: In a really annoyingly pedantic way, like a second grade teacher. It was SO badly presented, that it was not until I read it afterwards that I decided there was some merit to it.

Mostly, though, I contend it is not a poem. It is a series of unrhymed thoughts, presented without poetic meter or feel. It's prose.

Here it is in its entirety, so you can decide:

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

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John F. Kennedy,: Hi. President Kennedy here, and I would like to apologize postumously to the American people for making all subsequent Democratic presidents believe it is cool to have a poet read at their inauguration. Sorry, folks.

Gene Weingarten: Exactly.

Do you remember what happened with Kennedy? A really really sick and doddering Robert Frost had serious problems reading the text of his poem and had to stop and recite an old one from memory.

This was part of the one never delivered:

"... The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young amibition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday's the beginning hour."

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Screen Grab: What was the problem with those headlines?

Signed-- The Most Dense Member of this Chat

Gene Weingarten: Look at the headline under the big photo.

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New Haven, Conn.: One of the most remarkable parts of the speech was a simple one-word inclusion:

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers.

AND NON-BELIEVERS. When have you heard a public official, much less the president, acknowledge atheists or agnostics? How refreshing for a president to acknowledge reality.

Gene Weingarten: I found this extraordinary, and inclusive, but a couple of atheists of my acquaintance thought the word -- not the sentiment -- patronizing. As in: We believe in a lot of things, gosh darn it, just not in mystical superstition.

I think they are being babies. He meant nonbelievers in God, and I'm glad he said it.

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Port-a-Potty, DC: There is far too much to cover in today's one hour chat. Therefore, I challenge you, Gene, to answer our new President's call to action. Will you dust yourself off, commit yourself to the greater good of the country, work harder and extend today's chat by at least a half hour? Your country, no... the world, is depending on you.

Gene Weingarten: That quote reminded me of a great quote allegedly from Franklin:

"Sometimes, men will stumble on the truth. Then they will pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and proceed on as though nothing had happened."

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Freudian slippage: I can't help wondering if Justice Roberts wanted, on some unconscious level, to sabotage Obama's big moment. It was unpardonable, whatever it was. Someone called it the Chief Justice version of a "wardrobe malfunction."

Gene Weingarten: No one subconsciously wants to make a fool of himself.

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Pronunciation: Over the last several days, I've heard a number of newscasters talk about the "Inaugerration." It's Inauguration, dammit. There's a U in it.

Gene Weingarten: I also thought Feinstein's accent was funny. She kept "innerducing" people.

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Isolemnlyswe, AR: So what do you think President Obama should have done, faced with the Chief Justice's errors? You think he "unwisely" gave the CJ the chance to correct himself. What was wisest? Should he have simply said the right words, and opened himself to charges of elitism ("oh, he's so smart he's going to use his own words"), stupidity ("he can't even repeat words said two minutes ago!") and/or partisanship ("he's not going to use the words by the Republican-appointed chief?")?

Gene Weingarten: He definitely should have just said the right words. It would not have been seen as arrogant. There are clearly right words! He would have saved Roberts major embarrassment.

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Tanks to Tracto,OR: Yep, heard that one on the radio and asked my husband "What, does no one know what a plowshare is anymore?" Definitely struck an odd note.

Gene Weingarten: Well, the odd note was that you CAN beat a sword into a plowshare. I defy anyone to beat a tank into a tractor.

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Working: For #3, "Which line is the one most likely to become timeless, the signature of this speech?" I chose "None of these is likely to become a timeless signature line." because the correct answer was not available. The correct answer is we will not know until we see which one resonates best with the history to come. How we remember that speech will depend on how history plays out over the next four years. Any one of the other answers you provided could be chosen by future events as the most timeless.

Gene Weingarten: No, there is a correct answer. It's coming up shortly.

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Annapolis, Md.: Am I the only one who thinks it is a bad idea for the new president to exhaust himself and stand outside for eight hours the first day on the job?

Gene Weingarten: That's what killed William Henry Harrison. He delivered a pompous almost two-hour-long speech in the cold, then died.

I have always believed he was punished by God for his terrible, wooden speech. Here is how it began:

CALLED from a retirement which I had supposed was to continue for the residue of my life to fill the chief executive office of this great and free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, to take the oaths which the Constitution prescribes as a necessary qualification for the performance of its duties; and in obedience to a custom coeval with our Government and what I believe to be your expectations I proceed to present to you a summary of the principles which will govern me in the discharge of the duties which I shall be called upon to perform.

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Headline dolt: I'm an idiot- What's wrong with the headline? Obama Has a Way With Words Is it just bad capitialization?

Gene Weingarten: READ IT AGAIN.

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VP Lines: Gene--I'm not speaking about visible panty lines, but the lines the vice president has to say in his oath of office. Why is it that he has to say that he takes the oath of his own free will and without coercion, but the president doesn't? Did the founding fathers have a concern that the VP would just be considered the chief executive's patsy or something? That the only way that one would take the office was by blackmail?

Gene Weingarten: I know! That was very weird!

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Washington, D.C.: As good (not great) as Obama's speech was, yours would have been better. But why the animus toward Ben Stein? I read him for the same reason I read Peggy Noonan. Mostly they make me want to pound myself with a brick until the pain stops but every so often they actually make sense. Is this the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" phenomenon or is Stein possibly not as heinous as you think he is?

Gene Weingarten: This is a reference to my column on Sunday, where I wrote Obama's speech for him, and included a line about how Ben Stein is an "objectionable, talentless, desiccated old fart." I got some email about this line, and I am glad you asked. I wrote it because I find Ben Stein to be an objectionable, talentless, desiccated old fart.

Why? Where to begin?

Okay, here:

"If there is such a thing as karma, if there is such a thing as justice in this life or the next, Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear. Out of their smug arrogance and contempt, they hatched the worst nightmare imaginable: genocide.


Yeah, this former Nixon speechwriter blames The Post for uncovering Watergate, saying that it caused genocide in Cambodia, because he contends Nixon would somehow have prevented the rise of Pol Pot. He implies that Mark Felt and Woodward and Bernstein and Bradlee are going to hell for this, as though they not only were wrong about exposing Nixon, but were TRYING to create genocide.
This is seriously vicious and irresponsible speech, not to mention lunacy.

How about this: He denounces evolution, calling it "a painful, bloody chapter in the history of ideologies," and "the most compelling argument yet for imperialism, and the inspiration for the Holocaust."

His Intelligent Design movie is absurdly and dangerously dismissive of science, and completely dishonest. The NYT called it "a conspiracy theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry" and "an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike."

AFterward, Stein made the following statement about science and religion:

The last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed ¿ that was horrifying beyond words, and that's where science - in my opinion, this is just an opinion - that's where science leads you. Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.


Stein was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for politicizing the Holocaust in the name of an anti-evolution agenda. Asked for a comment about this, Stein replied, "It's none of their f----ing business."

This is all powerfully hateful ignorant stuff. Add to this the fact that "Win Ben Stein's Money" showed him to be personally charmless, incapable of seeming interesting or kind or funny.


But mostly I used it because I thought it was funny for Obama to take off on one poor schmo.

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Feinstein's Accent: Rush Limbaugh spent a portion of his show debating with himself whether she said "oath" or "oaf."

Sad.

Gene Weingarten: Hahahaha.

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Grouphum, OR: Which Gene Pool response is funnier: the people who take you to task for joking about WASPs, or the people who are take you to task for joking about the former Vice President's constitutional crimes?

Gene Weingarten: The Wasp complaints were harsher.

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Headline: "Obama's Has a Way With Words"

cringe

Gene, is it my imagination, or has the quality of copy-editing at The Post deteriorated since the latest round of buy-outs?

A sad reader

Gene Weingarten: Oh, it has. This is an established fact. We lost a lot of copyeditors.

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Beat a tank into a tractor. : I can do it. First smash tank. Add tank parts in to molten steel bath. Pour melted steel into tractor parts.

Done!

Gene Weingarten: Thank you.

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(Grover) Cleveland, OH: What percentage of people watching the inaugural address do you think turned to their friends and said "actually, only 43 Americans have taken the oath - Grover Cleveland did it twice"? Count me among one of them. Is there a term for feeling prideful for knowing something, but shameful for feeling the need to voice that knowledge?

Gene Weingarten: True enough. A screw up!

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Baby Hum, OR: My baby (who passes the peek-a-boo test) began a recent new trick: she turns to her side and twists, while letting out a series of small farts. It looks like she's wringing herself out, flatulence-wise.

Thought you'd appreciate this.

Gene Weingarten: I like that image. It reminds me of one of my favorite jokes, which I dasn't tell here.

Wait. Maybe I can.

Man goes to doctor. His private part seems to have terrible cracking skin and stuff. The doctor gives him a series of ointments, but after weeks and weeks, nothing worked. Finally, one week the guy comes back to the doc, and he is cured. He calls the doctor a quack, saying that he got cured not by anything the doc prescribed, but by something a total stranger told him at tbe urinal.

The guy had a very fine looking private part, and the beleaguered guy asked him if there was any secret to keeping it that way.

The man said there was nothing he could think of, except that every time he left the urinal, he would tap three times to make sure he was completely done.

"So I tried that, doctor, and within a week my problem was cured!"

"Well," said the doctor, "what had you done before?"

"I would wringgg it out."

Okay, back to the inaugural.

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Arlington, Va.: Re: the poll. I chose essentially "Good, not great" for the speech, but was surprised to see how many people indicated in the second question that the speech was without cliche.

I noticed, especially on the last question, that the majority of chatters liked the lines that had the most cliches in them: "patchwork heritage" "brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come" "eyes fixed on the horizon " "bitter swill of civil war and segregation"

What are your thoughts on this? I think these words sounded less cheesy when spoken in the moment, but I couldn't choose them as the best lines now that I'm reading them on the screen.

Not that this makes the speech any worse, I just don't think the absence of cliche is appropriate praise.

Gene Weingarten: Well, it was almost entirely free of cliche. I admit the storm stuff is a cliche. But that bitter swill -- not a hint of cliche in there.

This was not a cliched speech.

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Yes We CANada: Obama's speech was excellent. However, I don't think we'll be able to judge whether it was a historic speech until a few years have passed and we have had a chance to reflect on what is accomplished by our new President. If he is able to truly deliver, to put that optimism and good will into action, I think we will look back on this speech as a turning point. It was the right speech for yesterday. He is also a gifted speaker, an orator in the grandest tradition of the term. He could recite bad limericks and still make them sound eloquent.

But I can't underemphasize the relief here in Canada at his inauguration. A couple hundred of us gathered at the lunch hour around a giant screen in one of the office tower lobbies in Downtown Toronto, much as we had during the Olympics (but never with quite that many people). Both his oath and his speech were roundly and loudly applauded. I'm a dual citizen, and I was once again proud to wear that flag lapel pin. People kept coming up to me all day and congratulating me on our new president.

Gene Weingarten: In a way, he is President of the World.

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Biden's oath: I wondered about this too! Then a coworker explained that the VP has to take the oath that US Senators take, since his primary job is President Pro Temp of the Senate.

Here's the text: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

Gene Weingarten: Ah. Well, then he has already taken this oath.

The mental reservations is still weird.

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Arlington, Va.: This is more of a Liz question, but didn't Aretha look like she accidentally put on the box in which her hat arrived instead of the hat itself?

washingtonpost.com: I thought Aretha looked good. Though I think she's lowered my expectations of late, so anything was bound to be an improvement.

Gene Weingarten: I love this observation!

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Be More Fun,NY: Can you create some kind of filter on the Gene Pool that makes it easy for readers to ignore all the humorless posts? I thought some of the Sullenberger/WASP discussion was hilarious, but there were way too many whiny posts to sift through.

Gene Weingarten: It's an endemic problem for blogs and blog-like things, and I don't see a way around it; the wheat is usually worth the chaff, but there is a lot of chaff.

I took some flack for the Chesley Sullenberger III item, which asked people to come up with ways White Anglo Saxon Protestants might celebrate their new hero. There were some very funny suggestions.

In today's Gene Pool, I asked people to speculate on how Cheney REALLY hurt himself, and many of the responses are a scream ("standing on cloven hooves can be perilous") but to get to them you have to read through a lot of humorless diatribes.

I say it's worth it; Most bad entries identify reliably themselves as bad within the first few words.

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Gene Weingarten:

Okay, the poll.

You did very well.

This was a terrific speech because there was not a single empty word, not a single cheap play for emotion, not a single cliche, no phony knee-jerk appeal to patriotism, no hollow invocation of God. Mostly it was a mature and sober speech, highly intellectual, without a hint of condescension to the audience. It's not a great speech, destined for history, for only one reason. Though there are many terrific lines, they are crafted in complicated ways: None stands out as summarizing the central, defining theme. No fear itself, no ask nots, no malice toward none. In a way, this is admirable: Obama and his writers resisted the sound byte, as if to say, the times are too dire for theatrics.

Still, you can't call a speech great if it doesn't have a line to ring through the ages. If this were a Dylan song, it would be "Subterranean Homesick Blues," rather than "Like a Rolling Stone": It lacks a compelling hook.

So, very fine speech.

By far, it's great achievement was framing complex issues with intellectual and moral clarity, and without cliche or condescension. It was more intellectual than emotional, it was not particularly filled with reassurance -- more like hard truths.

Timeless, historic line? As I said, nope. The "false choice between safety and ideals" is an important line, setting an important moral tone, but it is a digression -- not central to the moment -- and won't last. "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist" is a beautiful, line, but it needs elaboration -- it won't stand alone, and, again, is not a clear summing up of where we are at this moment. It, too, is a digression.

All of the passages that follow in this poll are good, but one in each group stands out.

Group One:

Passage two is the weakest because it is a restatement of things said many times before, in largely the same way.

Passage four ends beautifully, with "imagination joined to common purpose, necessity to courage." But the rest is a bit of a Bushian straw man: "some who question." The best in this group is Passage Three, first because of the interesting observation that our abilities are undiminished, but mostly because of the grim-truth second half of it, followed by his commonsense prescription: Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off¿ A finely crafted argument.

Group Two: The passage with the tempering qualities of humility and restraint" is superior. But you have to go with the wonderful line about extending a hand if you unclench your fist. It's probably the best pure line of rhetoric in the speech.

Group Three: You guys are in love with passage two, about old hatreds dying and our common humanity emerging. It is very good, but the passage ends a bit oddly. What "peace" is he referring to -- seems to be world peace, which becomes an odd semi-digression. No, the really masterful passage in this group is the last, the one Obama chose to end with. He's deliberately echoing Kennedy's passing of the torch, but with a chilling addition: That torch is in jeopardy of being snuffed out. There are icy currents. Our job here is not just to pass it on, but to rescue it for the future. "when we were tested we refused to let this journey end," is reminiscent of Lincoln at Gettysburg.

A scary, inspiring note to end on.

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Gene Weingarten: Because I am such a clever genius, I have just now coined a new phrase that will go down in history, describing the swearing-in syntax gaffe:

Roberts' Rules of Order.

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Secret Undisclosed: Dick Cheney being wheeled out the back door in a wheelchair...

Dick Cheney being wheeled out the back door in a wheelchair!

Dick Cheney being wheeled out the back door in a wheelchair!!

It's the modern day video version of "The Portrait of Dorian Gray." Except in this version, Dorian starts out ugly and ends up as Darth Grandvader.

Gene Weingarten: Didn't he look like a particularly withered soul, in that chair?

In the Gene Pool, there arose a discussion of whom he reminds people of. Someone suggested Mr. Potter. I suggested Erst Stavro Blofeld.

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Ben Stein: The pinnacle of Ben Stein's career was "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." "Voo-something economics?" All else is bilge.

Gene Weingarten: It was also the beginning of his career in show biz. And the pinnacle. Which says something.

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Cheney's wheelchair: Two British newspapers noted that Cheney looked like Dr. Strangelove.

Gene Weingarten: Yes that was also mentioned.

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22 equals 24: I agree with the comment on Grover Cleveland. I argued this point with my wife, who thought that Obama was correct. I did not feel smug about it, I just felt that everyone else in the world is an idiot.

Gene Weingarten: Well, as I recall it is not really debatable: He was talking about the number of people, not the number of presidents.

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washingtonpost.com: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

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"Inaugerration": I complained to my boyfriend about this last night (after returning home and watching the end of the parade while attempting to regain feeling in my toes), and he said it's actually correct.

Augur, he said, isn't pronounced, aug-u-er, but aug-err.

I believed this, but was disappointed to have my ability to mock Soledad so cruelly stolen from me. Was he wrong?

Gene Weingarten: You are right.

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Grinnell, Iowa: I have a question that only this chat can answer.

My sister, girlfriend, dad, and I were talking about automated toilets and why we were annoyed by them. My gripe was that they always flushed when I stood up to wipe, meaning that I had to flush twice, a shameful waste of water.

My sister and girlfriend told me that standing up to wipe was the weirdest thing they had ever heard, but my dad said of course he stands to wipe. I first thought that it was a difference in sexes thing, until my girlfriend texted her brother to ask him. He also thought standing to wipe was the weirdest thing he had ever heard.

So the question is then left to you and the chatters: stand or sit to wipe after a poop?

Gene Weingarten: No. It makes cleanup more difficult. I defy anyone to make a logical argument for standing.

Gene Weingarten: Okay, back to the inauguration.

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washingtonpost.com: And Mr. Potter

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Ta, NK: re: tanks into tractors. You are correct, in fact it is the other way around as the T-34 shows.

Gene Weingarten: Excellent.

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Mr. Potter!!: THANK YOU--that's exactly who Cheney reminded me of, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. (Plus I don't know the other dude you listed.)

Gene Weingarten: Ernst Blofeld! The Bond villian, with the Persian cat in his lap!

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False Choice Between Safety and Ide, AL: I have to disagree with your dismissal of the "false choice between our safety and our ideals" line. When Obama said that, I got literal chills; I turned to my partner and said "Hot damn, we have an intelligent President again." Maybe it's only thrilling in the context of "At last, we have a President who appears unwilling to condone torture for nebulous foreign policy purposes," but I'll certainly remember it, even if it doesn't become a memorable phrase.

Gene Weingarten: It was a very important line; but it was not definitive of the speech. It was a vital digression, to clear up something from the past.

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Psychicpredicti, ON: So where do you think Obama will rank among great presidents?

Gene Weingarten: There is no way to answer that definitively without sounding like a jerk. I have enormous hopes, but, you know, luck will be a factor.

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Backtotex, AS: Gene--As glad as I am to see Bush gone, there was a pic on (I think) the Post Web site yesterday of Obama embracing Bush on the stand, with Bush staring off of Obama's left shoulder. The grip he had on Obama, and the sad, lonely look in his eye was almost too much to bear. It wasn't enough to make me feel sorry for the guy, but perhaps one glimpse of what is really going on in his soul.

Gene Weingarten: I felt slightly bad for W. I did. And I think the Obamas showed great grace by the tender way they escorted them to the helicopter, and said goodbye.

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Washington DC: Ben Stein really said:

"The last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed."

He did?!? Ben Stein thinks the commandants of Auschwitz and Dachau were scientists?!?

How does he treat his illnesses--with leeches?

Gene Weingarten: I do not regret even slightly what I said about Ben.

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Wheeled Cheney: At an Inauguration party I kept saying, (whenever Cheney was on camera) "That George Bailey will never amount to anything." No one laughed. Sheesh

Gene Weingarten: Hahaha.

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Washington, DC: Best line of the inaugural speeaches was by the guy who did the closing benediction. "...when the red man can get ahead, man."

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, I thought Lowery was great; arguably that was a silly way to end a pretty darn moving benediction, but I liked it. It was sort of cool. He, we are all people having a great time here.

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Baltimore, MD: Jill Biden is hot, I think her and Joe should do one of those Viagra commercials where she stars as the hot wife.

Gene Weingarten: They'd be GREAT in that commercial. Joe is so naturally comical.

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Chicago, IL: There have been 44 Presidents, if like many you count Acting President Dennis Hastert (2001-2005).

Signed,

Yeah, One of Those Cranks

Gene Weingarten: Noted.

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Indianapolis: I liked your speech column, Gene. You's have a way with words.

Gene Weingarten: I's HAS a way with words.

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McLean, VA: Achenbach quotes his daughter as saying Obama's speech was "harsh" like "a Dad speech." I think she is on to something. The speech did remind me of something a loving but stern dad would say. You know, encouraging but with a note of high expectations yet to be fulfilled.

Gene Weingarten: Yep, exactly.

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Inevitab, LE: How long do you think it will take for some overreaching right-wing nut to challenge Obama's presidency on the grounds of not properly being sworn in.

Gene Weingarten: My guess is they've already repeated the oath in private. It actually happened twice before, and they re-did it. Coolidge and Chester Arthur, I believe, bungled the oath.

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NYC: Those in my area of the viewing on the mall yesterday suggested Cheney looked like the Penguin villian from Batman. Almost made me spit water on the group of sixth graders in front of me.

Gene Weingarten: The Penguin! Yes.!

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Rockville: Gene. While I am excited that America has elected its first black president, I still wonder if we did it for the right reasons (agreeing with what he believes in as opposed to voting for him because he's black). Also, I'm having a hard time really seeing what effect the president really has on me. Honestly, I just don't see that it makes much difference for "regular folk." Can you convince me otherwise?

Gene Weingarten: Simple answer: Can you not see how your personal life would be different, your future might be different, had different guy been in the White House the last 8 years?

I can.

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Pat the Perfect, ME: re 44 vs. 43 men: According to The Post (I think), Obama's office actually was asked about this yesterday, and a spokesman maintained that Obama realized this, and DECIDED to stay with 44 because it would be less confusing.

Gene Weingarten: Ah, interesting. But there would have been a way to change the wording slightly, so it was not literally wrong.

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Screen Grab Mistake #2: (Haha, #2) Besides "Obama's", the text underneath the picture reads "An Obama-Biden supporter waits in DEAWARE"

Gene Weingarten: Man.

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Annandale, Va.: I noticed President Obama uttered, "...and God bless the United States of America" to close his inaugural speech. Do you take points off his speech for breaking Weingarten Rule #841,961?

Gene Weingarten: Yes.

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New York, N.Y.: Actually, Dick Cheney looked a heck of a lot like Mr. Burns. Completely decrepit.

washingtonpost.com:

Gene Weingarten: Too easy. Though the yellow skin is right.

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I chose False Choices . . . : But in retrospect, I do see that was wrong. That concept is one that Ben Franklin phrased more memorably, though I did get chills to hear a President shooting down the "if you disagree with my policies, the terrorists have won".

And the Ben Franklin line (might not be perfect, he said it a couple differents ways) . . . "Those who would sacrifice liberty for temporary safety deserve neither and will lose both."

Gene Weingarten: I think the last three words might not be original.

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Milwaukee, Wis.: Gene, Here is an excerpt from an email from my unmarried cousin. We are both single and in our late 40s. She raised a child as a single mother. I have no children, but neither of us has ever married. I wonder if you can shed some light on how other people manage to have happy marriages? She reads your chat every week.

"Cuz, the way I look at it, I work full time Mon-Fri. When I get home from work I have approximately 4 hours of time to enjoy in the evenings. Do I really feel like having that time sucked up by someone who makes me work in the kitchen and then clean it up? NO. How about being coerced into the bedroom when I'd rather read and haven't shaved my legs and have to hurry and do that? NO. How about tagging along with him (when I'm already exhausted) to some event, be it dinner at his parents, hanging out with his friends, a play (snore....at least I could get some sleep) NO thanks.

Even worse, what if I came home wanting peace and quiet and he's in an argumentative mood? Or I find out that he's cheating on me. Or he turns out to be a beater?

I don't know, cuz. I just don't think I could stand to have a husband. Too much sacrifice just to have someone in the bed next to me at night. How do so many people pull it off? I really don't get it. And I came from a good home - so did you. So it's not like I haven't seen a healthy marriage in action. I don't know why I'm so screwy.

Gene Weingarten: I would not even try to persuade this person to marry. I read "fear" in her answer.

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Alexandr, IA: I'm reading Obama's first book. Damn, he can write. Plus in the first few pages, he used the word "nihilist". We have a president with a vocabulary!

Gene Weingarten: I have said this before: That book is astonishing. He writes waaay the heck better than, say, I do and it's not even his first career.

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Rockville: Gene, Serious question - What do you think of the new first lady's big butt?

Gene Weingarten: And I will answer seriously: I think she is beautiful.

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Deaware, Md.: Hey, stop making fun of our small community.

Gene Weingarten: Noted.

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Mr. Pott, ER: But Mr. Potter gets away clean in It's a Wonderful Life! He never returned the money he found left in Uncle Forgetful's newspaper. I don't like that metaphor.

Cheney needs to pay for his crimes, or at least recognize that most of what his administration did was "illegal, unethical, or just plain bone-headed" (Quote stolen from The Daily Show).

Gene Weingarten: I have noticed that about Wonderful Life. It's a flaw.

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Voting for him because he was black?!: I'm white. Most of my friends are white. I would like to assure Rockville that we are not consumed with white guilt, and we voted for Obama because he seemed intelligent, visionary, competent, caring, involved, just, wise.... etc. I have run out of adjectives.

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, I meant to challenge that premise. I don't know any white person who on any level voted for him because he is black.

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Oath:: And apparently the oath is not what makes the person the president, it's the time of day. From the 20th amendement: Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Gene Weingarten: I was researching this this morning, and it seems to me to be a constitutional oddity; it is true the change happens according to the clock, but it is also true that the Constitution says the president "shall" take the oath. What if he or she declines???

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Obama the writer: And we should add that Obama actually wrote his books. There was some right-wing BS circulating during the campaign that the books were ghost-written by New Yorker writers. Not true.

Gene Weingarten: The greatest pre election BS, given credibility by some blogs, was that his books were written by...

(ready?)

Bill Ayers.

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Detroit: It isn't Obama's (or his speechwriter's) fault that we consider Cleveland to be two presidents but only one American. I would contend that Cleveland was the 22nd President, and everyone after his second term has been mis-numbered.

There is no way to refer to the number of presidents or Americans (or inaugurations -- do you count the flight from Dallas?) without confusing the masses and/or seeming ill-informed before the intelligensia.

Give him a break.

Gene Weingarten: I kind of agree with you. Ooh, it reminds me of the great double dactyl:

Higgledy piggledy
Benjamin Harrison
Twenty-third president
Was, and as such,

Served between Clevelands and
Save for this curious
Idiosyncrasy,
Didn't do much.

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Indianapolis, Ind: I love Aretha and no one was more deserving to have such a part. But she sounded horrible. I'm surprised you didn't mention her pause. My count....try tis of thee.

Gene Weingarten: I would have but it is in the Daily Show clip I linked to. They got there first.

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The real ending to It's a Wonderful Life: The real ending to It's a Wonderful Life.

From SNL.

Gene Weingarten: I don't remember this, so don't know what it is. Posting anyway.

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Salad B, AR: A friend recently admitted (without shame) that when she goes to the kind of food establishment where you load up your plate and pay by the pound, she will graze on the heavier items as she fills her plate so her meal is cheaper at the register. There is a place near our work where she does this at least once a week. To me, this is stealing food, but when I said so, she blew it off like I was being a nerdy do-gooder. Am I?

Gene Weingarten: It is no different from swiping an apple from a vendor. It is simple theft.

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E. Fallowfield, Pa.: Although it "does not compute", I think I remember you defending Ann Coulter once upon a time. Please tell me I am wrong. Or were you the one who called her a "performance artist" who was working for laughs and to shake things up?

Poor Ann has been "attacked " by the liberal TV media talking heads lately. Can't imagine why. Here's one of her pithy statements from her new book, 'In any event, divorced mothers should be called "divorced mothers," not "single mothers." We also have a term for the youngsters involved: "the children of divorce," or as I call them, "future strippers." It is a mark of how attractive it is to be a phony victim that divorcées will often claim to belong to the more disreputable category of "single mothers." -Page 36]'

Gene Weingarten: What I have said is that I think Ann is a performance artist. I do. I think she is so deep into the role that it is impossible to tweeze her real beliefs from the shtick, even, possibly, for her.

She IS smart -- that is an interesting observation about choosing the "more disreputable" category.

What she says about children of divorce is poisonously cruel.

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Inaugurati, ON: A good speech, masterfully delivered. There aren't any great lines, a la "Ask not what your country can do for you...", but I think that reflects Obama's complex and professorial character.

He does vocalize a profound insight, when he says, "Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights."

I think many people feel that not only are times bad, but that America has past its peak. However, no one of any stature has proclaimed it aloud. Honest recognition of this feeling is important to rally the nation toward renewal.

Gene Weingarten: I agree.

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Helmetta, N.J.: Can you define concupiscent without looking it up?

Gene Weingarten: Yes. It means the same as lickerish.

I am a connoisseur of such words.

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Histo, RI: Is this the first time we've had a picture in the chat itself?

I feel honored just to be here.

Gene Weingarten: I don't even know how that happened. I am in awe of Cwoman.

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I don't know any white person who on any level voted for him because he is black. : Obama's race was definitely a factor in my vote. If there had been two identical candidates - Obama and a "white" Obama, I would have voted for the black one. I think that a black president, at this time in history, has a better chance of being successful in addressing both global and domestic issues.

Now, I wouldn't have voted for him JUST because he's black, but, like the fact he's spent part of his time overseas, it was a positive consideration for me.

Gene Weingarten: Okay, but there WASN'T a white Obama. That is the point. This was a starkly clear choice.

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White Person -- Black Vote: Gene -- I am a white woman who (in part) voted for Barack Obama because he is black. More accurately, because he is from two races, as are my children.

I am a conservative in many ways and never voted for someone who was either Pro-life or a Democrat. But, as the parent of three bi-racial (white/black) children, I had to vote for Mr. Obama.

When I started researching him a year or so ago, I was inspired by him. And, while we differ on some views, I agreed with him on others. So, in the end, the final decision came down to my kids. I needed them to know that they truly could be anything they wanted to be.

The oddest part of this story is that my black husband was a McCain supporter until our 14-year-old told him that he couldn't vote for him. Ultimately my husband voted for Mr. Obama to appease my children and not because he thought he would be the best president.

Apparently, we are an odd family!

Gene Weingarten: Well, okay. There was at least one person.

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More evidence: In a C-SPAN interview, Ben Stein referred to himself as "middle class". The interviewer pressed him and asked, "But don't you live in Beverly Hills?" Stein said, "But there are people much richer than I am."

Gene Weingarten: That would make The Sultan of Oman middle class, because Bill Gates is richer than he is.

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My only criticism: i wish he'd called us "freethinkers" rather than "nonbelievers," which I find insulting and inaccurate. I DO have beliefs, just not in your Christian god. Saying I don't have beliefs makes me look like I have no values or morals. I do, they don't aren't hinged on hopeing to get into heaven.

Gene Weingarten: FREETHINKERS? Imagine if he had said that!

(That's more loaded than "pro-life.")

We know what he meant. I have no problem with nonbelievers.

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Woodstock, Vt.: Coolidge didn't screw up the oath of office. His father, a notary public, administered it to him in the dead of night in his Vermont farmhouse after receiving word that President Harding had died.

Gene Weingarten: Then why did he have to take it again?

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New York, N.Y.: During the inauguration, is it wrong to keep thinking to the Simpsons' President's Day Spectacular school musical:

"We are the mediocre Presidents. You won't find our pictures on dollars or on cents.

There's Taylor! And Tyler! And Fillmore! And Hayes!

There's William Henry Harrison: (I died in 30 days!)"

Gene Weingarten: Yes.

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Alexandria: Here's another new (actually, very old) favorite word: Constult.

It means to act stupidly together. I've worked with my share of constultants in the past.

Look it up in the OED if you doubt me.

Gene Weingarten: That's great!

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re: not taking the oath: Gene, I'm a lawyer for a non-executive branch of the government. after discussing with my colleagues yesterday the fact that for 10 minutes, we had a president who didn't say the oath (and then said it incorrectly), we argued about the ramifications. Our best answer is that he becomes president on noon on the 20th. but according to article II of the Constitution, "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation." So without the oath, he's a president who can't actually do anything. He's president in name, but without power to sign or veto laws, issue executive orders, command the military, etc.

Gene Weingarten: I reject that line because it is ungrammatical. Before he enter?

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Pat the Perfect, ME: Re typos on the Web page: This has nothing to do with losing copy editors. It is merely the result of rushing content onto the website as fast and as extensively as humanly possible -- Washingtonpost.com doesn't have copy editors per se. I noticed that post.com picture of the Obamas walking alongside the car yesterday afternoon no later than five minutes after they opened the door.

Copy editing obviously adds a step in the process between writing and publishing. Not only does it take resources (and no doubt, cutting back on copy editors has resulted in a sloppier print newspaper), but it also takes time. It's great to be perfectly polished and incredibly speedy simultaneously, but as a web reader, would you prefer to be kept waiting while the copy is read a second time, to clean it up?

Suppose you had to wait here for someone to copy-edit Gene's incorrect "take flack" and "it's"?

Gene Weingarten: Ooooooh.

Pat is getting feisty!

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How about next week?: Since I know you will talk about all things Obama today, when will you get back to talking about important things like VPL's and the proper mowing and trimming of the lawn?

Gene Weingarten: Thank you. It gives me a good opportunity to link to this, which was submitted by Peter Owen.

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Boston, Mass.: I was impressed by the speech for two main reasons. It was intelligent (oh what a nice change) but also because he brought up truths that aren't often said. America is not a great nation because it's destined to be but it actually has to earn that distinction. One of the most annoying aspects of the arrogance of the previous administration is that the US is the best nation and Americans the best people. Why? Who said so? Finally Obama tells us that we have to DO something to be considered great. What a novel concept! So that was my favorite section.

I still think you're wrong and the "hope over fear" line will resonate as a stand-alone line.

Gene Weingarten: Nope. For one thing, it can't hold a candle to fear itself. They cannot both exist in the pantheon.

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Gene Weingarten: Okay, we are done. Thank you all, this was fun.

Now, for the future: No chat next week, as I am finishing a cover story. Then we should be on our usual schedule for some time.

And yes, despite all the cynicism and faultfinding, I think I am as excited, personally, as the rest of you over what yesterday has wrought.

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Californ, IA: Why is Doonesbury so lame this week? Arguably the most transformative week in American history, and we get Jimmy Thudpucker? What's up with that?

Gene Weingarten: Good question.

I don't think it's lame, but it is odd. I asked Garry, and his answer makes total sense:

"You go with the idea you have, not the idea you'd like to have."

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