Rick Warren To Give Invocation At The Inauguration; John Williams, Aretha, Yo-Yo MA, I. Perlman, Too

Here's a bit of a surprise: Dr. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church will give the formal invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration.  The good pro-life theologian first met Obama in 2006 at a Saddleback AIDS forum in California. Obama used the occasion to press the evangelical pastors present to embrace "realism" when they considered the issue; preach abstience, yes, but preaching against contraception can kill. (Here's some of what Obama said that day: "I know that there are those who, out of sincere religious conviction, oppose such measures. And with these folks, I must respectfully but unequivocally disagree. I do not accept the notion that those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence.")

When I interviewed Obama last year, he told me that the moment was integral to his decision to run for president; when was the last time, he had asked himself, when a Democrat had had such dialog with pastors about AIDS? 

Now -- lest you think that the ceremony will be preachy and give television anchors a chance to debate Warren's response to torture, gays and the Democratic Party, they'll have to pause while Aretha Franklin sings Obama onto the podium. 

Then comes the swearing in of the vice president by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. Then comes  the delicious (as Cory Booker might say) John Williams will conduct Itzhak Perlman on the violin and Yo-Yo Ma on the cello.

Then comes the formal swearing in.

Also participating: poet Elizabeth Alexander, the San Francisco Boys and Girls choirs, the Marine and Navy bands, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.