The inauguration of 44 is over and the tons of trash had barley begun to settle when I got my first chance to see “pretention” in living color.

As expected, President Obama and his team were flawless in their execution.  I was wrong in assuming his speech would be written by the team that had given him the message throughout the campaign.  It has been reported he wrote over 90% of the speech and it was a very very good speech.

The pretention I referenced above was delivered by the universal gasbag, Oprah Winfrey.  Wednesday’s edition of her show was predicated on an analysis of the inauguration and the impact on society.  Oprah and her guests were going to review the entire weekend and help us common folk understand how import and life changing the ceremony and surrounding events were.

To do this, Oprah spared no energy in reaching out to a stellar collection of experts on the American psyche, observers of American life, and educators who have dedicated their lives to understanding this country and interpreting the meaningful events and their inherent impact.   Who to get…who to get.

Here are the assembled intellectual  luminaries:

Forrest Whitaker – Actor from Forrest Gump, Good Moring Viet Nam, etc

Jon Bon Jovi – Musician and representative of the hair club for men.

Doris Kerns Goodwin – Author of biographies on Lincoln and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Gayle King – Human hemorrhoid and Oprah’s best “friend.”

Now friends, I admit I’m not the most astute observer of life, but when I look for a well formed opinion regarding historical references, I don’t need Gayle King, Jon Bon Jovi, Forrest Whitaker or Oprah to tell me whats what.  

If this keeps up we may have to reinstate the “Thin the Herd” process.