Did George W. Bush hear those cheers for Obama outside the White House last night?

 

It was a spontaneous eruption of civic joy, an unrehearsed decision by more than 1,000 to gather in front of the White House last night to celebrate the historic election of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president.

Young people made up the majority of the crowd and there were lots of parents pushing strollers. One woman came from Virginia with her husband and three children, to share a rare moment of history. She told Voice of America:

I came to the White House because there was nowhere else I could be to celebrate this moment. We live 20 miles from here and we jumped in the car when [Obama clinched]. I just couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

Car horns blared. Secret Service agents, who in the last eight years have had to hold off crowds protesting the war in Iraq or the $700-billion bailout package, simply opened their cellphones and took photos. All the while, the crowd shouted, "Obama! Obama!" and "Yes we can! Yes we can!"

Inside, President Bush, who famously likes to be in bed by 10 p.m. (Oops...an earlier post said 10 a.m. Thanks to our readers for catching!) and whose own popularity rating is at historic lows, must have marveled.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credits: Lawrence Jackson / Associated Press

Comments

[DCfred]

he had to. I live 5 blocks from the White House and i could hear it-- till 5 am!

[Hah]

Johanna, I think you meant 10pm

...............................good one.

[RogerM]

Are you kidding me?
Look at your whole blog here -- "Did George Bush hear all those cheers for Obama?"... who cares? He's out of the White House anyway. If that's why you voted for Obama, then you voted for the wrong reasons. A personal vendetta against Bush wasn't the reason to vote for or against a candidate in this election. Bush wasn't on the ticket. If you voted for Obama based on the issues, great. But if you voted for Obama just to 'show Bush' then you're a completely misguided moron.

[JL MOEBIUS]

I am proud to be an American and give full support to our new President of the United States and know we can make a difference with the strength, compassion, knowledge, intelligence, caring, fairness and graces of God that I feel President Obama will bring to the White House and his new role in our government. What a privilege we have in our country to witness this extraordinary moment in time!

[DM]

You didn't even answer the question asked! DID HE HEAR?

[Joan Peters]

Bush is a lucky man. Monarchies were disbanded in the same manner; except the nobles were usually killed as well.

[Jesse Shaffer]

Americans have lost all decency and respect. The author of this story shows no respect.

The office of the President is to be respected. He is our leader, duely elected. I do not care for Obama, but he will be President. I will respect him as the elected authority. When he makes his mistakes, which everyone makes mistakes, where will you be to jump down his throat? Oh wait, thats right, Obama bought the media. President Bush has made decisions that I do not agree with. He has however shown backbone and guts to do what he feels is in the nation's best interests. What will Obama do? Do we really know? Voting present wont cut it.

Maybe what we need is for the govt. to start taking over news media. Maybe we need a little less freedom of speech. Maybe we need some communism here to show you that we are blessed to live in a country that allows you to run your mouths. Should we get to that point, you'll wish you were back in even these days with President Bush when you had the freedom even to criticize the man who fought to protect that very freedom.

[Rob Starbuck]

RogerM, you must have missed this: If you are under 13 years of age you are not allowed to participate.

Please don't take this wrong, it is not meant to be unfairly discriminatory, but to cut down on name calling like "Moron", etc, and irrationally pre-judging others. Come back in a few years. If you have any questions, please ask your mother or father.

Thanks,

Rob

[Pat Triotic]

Dear Jesse Shaffer.
If you ever have the opportunity to travel outside of North America, you will find that the government already controls our news agencies. When was the last time you saw a coffin of one of our brave volunteer soldiers being removed from a plane or being shown the respect they deserve. I agree with you about showing respect to the office of president, but at some point in time you have to take pause and look how many lives have been taken and lives that have been destroyed by these mistakes. I bet you would feel differently if some of your family were wrongly killed or you were displaced from your home due to these mistakes. As far as our Constitutional rights, look again, you already got your wish to have them eroded. If you truly love your country, stop defending the ideals of patriotism, and speak up to see that our beloved country/government to live up to these ideals. That is what a Patriot does. God Bless You.

[RogerM]

Rob Starbuck

You must be one of the Misguided Morons, then, Rob. I notice that you don't have any real leg to stand on, no issues to present, no argument to make here other than to counter attack me with the 'under age posting' thing.

Forget the fact that most of what happened on George Bush's watch was fostered during the Clinton Administration. That doesn't matter to the Starbucks toting, Birkenstock wearing crowd that you so proudly belong to.

Forget the fact that 9/11 happened on his watch -- the worst domestic act of terrorism on U.S. soil. Forget the fact that Clinton repealed the Glass Steagall Act in 1994 -- which paved the way for the subprime mess that this country is currently in.

Forget history itself, because you never really knew the issues in the first place. Like most Americans (and most likely the person who wrote this blog), you get your news from watching Oprah Winfrey and The View. You mindlessly chant the Michael Moore talking points of "Bush Lied People Died" over and over until you're blue in the face, then vote for the candidate -- ANY candidate -- who ISN'T Bush, and then ceremoniously gather in front of the White House afterwards to "Show Him" how victorious you are.

The only thing you, or anyone else of your ilk have 'shown' me is how mind numbingly dumbed down the American public has become and how vulnerable they are to the American media who will so shamelessly throw their support behind a candidate and do anything they can to get him into office.

Good for you. You're candidate won Tuesday. You got what you wanted. But remember the old adage. You've made your bed. Now sleep in it.

[Michael Fulton]

The tactics that the Bush machine used to justify to & also to terrify Americans w/ 'the war on terror' is simply despicable. We have been 'played' by a senior cadre of the military industrial complex. We are just the audience to a masterful production of 'oil gatherers'.

to Ms. Shaffer: in these past 7 years or so Americans' have lost more of their constitutional rights than I can count. The America that I grew up in does not exist anymore...the land of the free? It is far more a police state these days.

[Jorge I. Gomez]

Why not into Guantanamo. The most corrupt, criminal administration shouldn't be allowed to fade into Crawford, rather he should, along with his cronies, be sent to jail to pay for the malfeasences of his administration. A democracy that allows this kind of behavior can't be called a democracy, otherwise, Pinochet's Chile would also have to be called a democracy and we all know that this is impossible. Pinochet is not as vicious as Bush and Cheney are and we know that if it weren't for his age and demise, today he would be sitting in jail, thanks to a Spanish judge that had the guts to bring justice where there was none. I wish that judge would file war crime charges against the Bush administration to make whole this democracy of ours that looks more like a dictatorship than a democracy.

[Linda]

I feel George W. Bush did the best that he could. We all know this economy was in trouble dating back to Pres. Carter. These Pres. are not miracle workers. I feePres. Bush did the best that he could with what he had dealing with 9/11. we stood up to Japan dealing with pearl habor.Now this Pres. Obama I don't know I respect him to take on this mess. If he can pull us out well God bless him. But I'm wary of the fact he hasmuslim heritage. we will see. Like I said God Bless America.