Two-Stepping Out

After a Long Power Outage, Bright Lights

Worth the wait.

Worth the eight years of exile.

Worth the 36 days of tumbling post-election tension.

Worth a few hours more in pinching shoes and cinching cummerbunds to finally see him, the 43rd president of the United States, bounding into ballroom after ballroom. Last night, George W. Bush finally got to have his victory party, a rolling, red-light-flashing cavalcade past some 50,000 screaming, whooping supporters at 10 parties across town.

He picked up on the night's tone right at 8 p.m., on his first stop, when he strode into the Capital Hilton ballroom, grinned at a hollering crowd of 500 Medal of Honor winners and other veterans, and said, "Behave yourselves."

Any distress over Bush's avoidance of active duty in Vietnam had long since faded for this crowd of medal-laden men and women, and they stood on chairs to take his pictures as the new president pledged to make sure "the mission is focused, and it's focused on this: that our soldiers are trained to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place."

And then he and first lady Laura Bush and Vice President Cheney and his wife, Lynne, were gone in a rush, off to the next event, snow falling over them like soft and steady confetti.

Let's get this right out of the way: The man did not lie. The man cannot dance.

Why not? Was Dubya not an Andover cheerleader? Did he not perform athletics with some degree of agility? Does he not hail from the very American social class that has supported Junior Assembly lo these many years?

Whatever Ricky Martin tried to teach him at the Lincoln Memorial the other night, it never took. When the president and first lady took their first twirl at the Ronald Reagan Building, they managed what looked like the Bataan Death March set to music for a grand total of 29 seconds before she took pity and urged inaugural co-chairs Bill and Kathy DeWitt, and Mercer and Gabrielle Reynolds and executive director Jeanne Johnson Phillips to join them. "He's going to get better as the night goes on," Reynolds promised.

At the D.C. Armory he did break his record and danced 56 seconds, to "Waltz Across Texas," his dance tune of the evening.

But while the president was dancing longer, he'd picked up the overall pace and was whipping through the festivities ahead of schedule. Still, with several balls left to go, he was already up past his usual 10 p.m. bedtime.

By the time the president reached the Convention Center, where he hit three separate events, his dancing had become a running joke with the crowds and the press.

He mugged for the cameras, did two twirls and dips with the first lady, and stretched his dance time out to 1 minute 7 seconds.