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Taken before I learned she was really a he!

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Although I was in the capital on Inauguration Day, only five or six blocks from the Capitol building itself, I didn't witness the historic moment when Barack Huessein Obama raised his hand and pledged to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

I didn't share in the collective experience that nearly two million people experienced in person on the Mall leading to the Capitol. I didn't watch the inauguration on TV or JumboTron, or witness it via smart phone, cell phone, radio, or smoke signals.

Instead, I milled about with thousands of people holding printed Purple Tickets that promised access to Capitol grounds. The tickets were legitimate passes; they'd been given out by our duly elected Senators and Representatives. They were, however, useless. We were denied entry to the grounds and locked behind the Purple Gates -- left to stand in lines that stretched for numerous city blocks, or left to stand in huddled masses in underground tunnels.

On Inauguration Day, what I witnessed was a mismanagement of resources and a colossal failure to communicate with thousands of people who'd braved the freezing cold. I witnessed civil rights activists who'd marched in Selma being denied the experience they'd hoped and dreamed about the majority of their adult lives. I watched student activists become despondent and grown men shake with frustration and frostbite.

I witnessed distressed children, disappointed adults, and a police force that was as confused as the rest of us -- or utterly unaware (or indifferent) on vacant streets near empty Greyhound buses. I witnessed ATF forces descending on automobiles at will, bomb-sniffing dogs, and a mediated tension between police state and a new state of the union.

I didn't have the moment I was hoping for when Barack Obama was sworn in (for the first time). I wasn't a part of what a friend described as a "million mind group think" on the Mall. Of the millions, perhaps billions, who witnessed history, I was among a small group of people who were reminded that the election of Barack Obama had not eliminated disparity and disillusionment in the country.

I observed people being shut out from the American experience on Inauguration Day. I spoke with citizens struggling to understand why the government promised one thing, but delivered another. I was a part of a crowd chanting, "Let us in!" who shook the gates but did not storm the barricades.

The events that transpired this week are a very important reminder that history is a sum of occurrences. Some are monumental, some are not. Some events carry with them great weight and meaning, some are flashes of time and light, observed but never truly experienced. Some are forgotten, or ignored, because they devalue or question the collective experience.

Listening to Barack Obama's address coming from the stereo speakers of a street vendors' Cutlass, I couldn't help but feel that I was having an equally satisfying and uniquely American experience of my own. As thousands of ebullience-free citizens made their way home (or the liquor store) the vendors voices squawked "tee-shirts, buttons, nachos, pretzels....five dollars!" at a feverish, frantic pitch.

While I couldn't participate fully in this historic moment, I could at least purchase it. Isn't that the next best thing to being there or watching it from the comfort of one's own home, wrapped in a Snuggie? Instead, I had to find comfort in victory and find peace of mind in the fulfillment of November's nationwide vote of confidence in Barack Obama.

"It'll be better next time," I heard someone say to a child, forecasting four years ahead, turning one day's disappointment into many more years of hope.

And I was amazed, once again, how an ideal that is often fragile, and forever fleeting, can be incredibly powerful. Not quite as powerful as the jalapeno cheese I slathered on my nachos -- but much more satisfying and enduring.

Names that evoke thoughts of leadership, contemplation, wit, wisdom, and political courage. Names that are separated by decades, centuries, distance, and political ideology.

Yet the one thing they share is a serious issue that's being tossed about with yet another name recently in the news. They all suffered from mental illness.

And according to several "news" reports: so does Ron Blagojevich.

Blagojevich made "a few" bad judgments because "he has some sort of mental problem" [CBS]. The Sun-Times asserts his "glossy locks -- perfectly sculpted in rain or snow -- may be an indication of a sickness beneath his scalp." The Associated Press has even weighed in, "Ill. governor parlor game: Psychotic or political?"

BULL FUCKING SHIT.

This is intellectually lazy, shitty, shoddy, and flat-out stupid reporting.

Ron Blagojevich's mental state is not at question here. He is accused of abusing his position of power and failing to serve the best interests of people of Illinois. He was arrested for attempting to selfishly manipulate the public trust and for betraying the state (and nation) he swore to protect.

If Blagojevich is ill, I'm not indifferent to his personal pain, but that does not excuse him for what appears to be a blatant attempt to personally benefit at the public's expense. History has shown that great leaders can face and overcome incredible challenges, even when neurons malfunction and dopamine levels fluctuate wildly.

There are countless people, far less famous than Lincoln, Churchill, Newton, Tolstoy, Vonnegut, and Twain who have made great strides to improve the lives of others, to lift up the dreams of the next generation, and to lift their own heads high when serious illness cast a debilitating pall on their lives.

If found guilty, I hope that the millions of people who have overcome serious mental illness are not lump-summed with a man, who whether or not he is ill, is certainly, and unequivocally an asshole.