WASHINGTON — Barack Obama will be inaugurated to his second term
in office this month. His official swearing in is on Sunday,
January 20 - the date prescribed by federal law. But the
ceremony will be repeated for the public on Monday, January 21.
The inauguration of a president caps a political process that
started more than a year and a half earlier. The ceremonies are
steeped in tradition and symbolism, meant to show the continuity
and strength of the American political system. At noon on
January 20, in the year following the November presidential
election, a new U.S. president takes office, or the incumbent
president continues on to a second four-year term. Inauguration
Day represents an unbroken chain stretching back to 1789, when
the United States installed its first president, George
Washington. The ceremony conveys the strength - and the
permanence - of the U.S. presidency. And as Georgetown
University’s Mark Rom points out, it is a powerful symbolic
moment for the American people. "Because it is the t