More people could watch it, so it was a big occasion. 1977:
Carter's long walk Jimmy Carter made the decision evidently just
three weeks before the inauguration that he would walk after his
inauguration back to the White House. And it really was an
extraordinary moment. ... There was a feeling with Carter that
he was being a people's president, as opposed to the imperial
guard that had surrounded Nixon. And so he's walking, (and first
daughter) Amy is running around next to him. There's a sense of
exuberance, and a sense that something special is happening.
1961: JFK's stirring address What is so memorable about John F.
Kennedy saying that the torch is being passed to a new
generation is that he himself represented a new generation. (He
was) 22 years younger than Dwight Eisenhower, and what the
speech promised was action, movement, (and) a new energy coming
into the government and into the country. When we think of those
famous words -- "Ask not what your country can do for you, but
what you can do for the co