A bad experience for Obama fans who waited for hours with their purple tickets, getting nowhere, until noon and the end of it.

And then, shear, crushing disappointment descends over the crowd. Unlike the smiles on all the faces you walked by on, say, election night, or in the metro last night, this crowd had to summon up all they had left after multiple hours in the cold to give a tepid ovation to the inauguration of a new president.

Symbolic of the presidency to come.