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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Host of celebs get front-row seating


Advertiser News Services

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Beyonce and husband Jay-Z try to find their seats as they arrive for the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol.

JAE C. HONG | Associated Press

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

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WASHINGTON — With fame and fortune apparently comes another perk: A front-row view of history.

Jay-Z was at President Obama's swearing in yesterday with wife Beyonce. Smokey Robinson, Diddy and Denzel Washington made it, too. Bruce Springsteen was there with his wife.

Also on hand were Christopher Guest, Jamie Lee Curtis, Muhammad Ali, John Cusack, Stephen Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Magic Johnson and Val Kilmer, among other celebs.

KENNEDY COLLAPSE BLAMED ON FATIGUE

WASHINGTON — Doctors blame fatigue for the seizure that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ill with a brain tumor, suffered during a post-inauguration luncheon yesterday for President Obama.

Dr. Edward Aulisi of Washington Hospital Center said the senator was talking with family and friends, and feeling well later yesterday: "After testing, we believe the incident was brought on by simple fatigue."

CHIEF JUSTICE FLUBS PRESIDENTIAL OATH

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., swearing in a new president for the first time, flubbed the oath of office. President Obama paused, then repeated the right words slightly out of order.

The presidential oath comes directly from the Constitution. It says, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

When Roberts administered the oath, he misplaced the word "faithfully."

Obama said, "I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear ..."

Roberts continued, "that I will execute the office of the president to the United States faithfully ..."

Obama paused and then said, "that I will execute ..."

Roberts interjected, "faithfully the office of the president of the United States ..."

Obama repeated the chief justice's words. From there, they got back on track.

TUSKEGEE AIRMAN FINALLY HAS HIS DAY

WASHINGTON — H.M. Cummings, one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, never thought when he was arrested in 1945 that he would live to see an African-American president.

Yet here he was at the inaugural ceremony for Barack Obama, bundled in a wheelchair at age 89, a long way from the April day when he was humiliated.

Cummings, a B-25 pilot, was among 103 black airmen arrested at Freeman Field, Ind., for refusing to promise to stay out of an all-white officers' club.

"I couldn't sign my rights away, my civil rights," said Cummings, of Columbus, Ohio, who recalled the arrest yesterday as he sat in a reserved section on the West Front of the Capitol.

The black airmen trained as a segregated unit at an air base in Tuskegee, Ala.