As Donald Trump is inaugurated the 45th president today, it’s not likely that the three networks will suggest that seagulls were “awed” by the “sacred” event, one that “pilgrims” trekked to Washington to see. But that happened on January 20, 2009 as Barack Obama became the 44th president. ABC, CBS and NBC reporters were beside themselves and compared the event to a religious experience.

Then-CBS host Harry Smith saw the inauguration as where “the secular and the religious” merged. He gushed, “So it was that as many as two million pilgrims made their way to Washington and the Mall to witness this most sacred event.”

A day before, on January 19, 2009, CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez hailed, “Does it get any better, or more beautiful, or more spectacular than this?"

Over on the January 21, 2009 NBC Nightly News, Lee Cowan echoed the religious language: “In the end, though, it really didn't matter where you were as long as you weren't alone. Just ordinary street corners like this one here in Chicago fell silent, almost becoming a political cathedral of sorts.”

On the January 20, 2009 World News, Bill Weir thought that even the animals would be amazed: “From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity.”

The worst examples of the media’s fawning over Obama’s 2009 inaugural can be found below:

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