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And looking forward to Inauguration Day, ABC and NBC both sent a White House correspondent to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, where Barack Obama will start his train ride to Washington. NBC's Savannah Guthrie reported on Republican skepticism about Obama's fiscal stimulus plan--"too much spending on the wrong things" and "not enough tax relief"--while ABC's Jake Tapper turned a sarcastic eye on Obama's jobs scheme. The President-elect publicized his proposal to create 459,000 new jobs in sustainable energy industries on the very day that, elsewhere in the economy, seven corporations announced a total of 48,000 layoffs. Obama visited Cardinal Fastener, a wind turbine parts factory in Ohio, to proclaim progress: "Cardinal hired two workers…jobs were created right here this week." Just 458,998 to go.
CBS filed a couple of Inauguration features. An Exclusive by Armen Keteyian displayed the clearer, stronger, less intrusive plexiglass screen that protects "Presidents and the Pope" invented by American Defense Systems on Long Island. Its transparent layers of glass and ceramic and crystal and polymers--the type of chemical used for the cover of a golf ball--make it excellently bulletproof. To prove it, Keteyian had a couple of New York City police sharpshooters riddle the plexi with 75 rounds of "high caliber ammo." None penetrated.
Instead of pilot Chesley Sullenberger, CBS decided to close its newscast with Michelle Miller's profile of Yo-Yo Ma. The cellist Ma, whose performance as a seven-year-old for President John Kennedy Miller shared with us and him on videotape, will be part of an Inaugural quartet. It will play Ode to Obama composed by John Williams, who wrote the theme for Star Wars, Miller reminded us. "What will you say to him when you meet him?" Miller asked Ma. "Congratulations, Mr President."
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