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Evoking Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., President-elect Barack Obama launched a four-day inaugural celebration Saturday before thousands of chilled but cheering onlookers from Philadelphia to the nation's capital. He promised to bring the country "a new Declaration of Independence"-free from small thinking, prejudice and bigotry.Obama invoked a grand heritage of American giants as he appealed "not to our easy instincts but to our better angels," an echo of Lincoln's first inaugural address. He took note of the enormous challenges that lie ahead and promised to act with "fierce urgency," a phrase often used by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.In Baltimore, his last stop before arriving in Washington shortly before 7 p.m., Obama remembered the troops at Maryland's Fort McHenry who defeated the British many generations before."It's time to take up the cause for which they gave so much," he told a crowd of about 40,000. "The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right."Tracking Lincoln's historic path to Washington by riding a vintage railcar on his whistle-stop trip, Obama carried with him the hopes of a nation weary of war, frightened of economic chaos and searching for better days. Vice President-elect Joe Biden joined the journey en route, from his home in Delaware, and spoke for many when he said he was excited and ready for Tuesday.Then, sobered by the challenges of governing, Biden added: "I think it's Wednesday we need to be ready."Washington pulsed with anticipation of Obama's swearing in as the nation's first black president. The city was aflutter with preparations for four days of parties and pomp, shadowed at every turn by layer upon layer of security. For every banner or piece of bunting that was going up around the city, there was a concrete barrier or metal fence at the ready as well....To read more go to:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/01/17/obama-set-kick-whistle-stop-tour/
As in the days of Noah....
