Hillary Clinton looks on, a few feet from history

Hillary Clinton probably thought often about what it would be like to look out on the lawn of the Capitol as the page was finally turned on the divisive 2016 election, but she would have imagined a very different tableau than the one before her Friday.

The defeated Democratic presidential nominee was looking on from fewer than 10 seats away as Donald Trump took the oath of office.

Clinton sat beside former President Bill Clinton, her only job to be part of the tradition that the living former presidents are witness to the peaceful assumption of power by a new leader.

“It is so viscerally unappealing and ghoulish, and too fantastical for a movie plot, really,” Jennifer Palmieri, formerly the communications director for the Clinton campaign, said ahead of the ceremony.

“It’s clearly a very healing thing for her to show up to the election of the guy who beat her, especially because he beat her surprisingly,” said Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., a strong Clinton supporter and one of those who chose to stay away.

(George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, did not attend due to illness.) Clinton wore white, the symbolic color of the women’s suffrage movement, as did both of Donald Trump’s adult daughters.

There is something that I wanted to say.

Because I was very honored — very, very honored — when I heard that President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton was coming today.