President Barack Obama took the advice of constitutional lawyers and retook the oath of office Wednesday that Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed the first time around.

Roberts re-administered the oath privately Wednesday evening at 7:30 in the White House Map Room. White House counsel Greg Craig said Obama took the oath from Roberts again out of an "abundance of caution."

Maybe—though I doubt it—this will shush those zealous right-wing conspiracy theorists with a blog and even those zealous right-wing conspiracy theorists with a television network:

In more oath-related news, Obama looked annoyed this afternoon when Biden made a joke at the expense of Chief Justice John Roberts for flubbing the oath the first time.

A lot of people have called Obama's speech "underwhelming," which, after watching it twice more, I understand: To me, most of Obama's speeches are overwhelming. In contrast, I thought his speech yesterday was nearly perfect. Although I came of voting age in the era of Clinton—which is to say, the last time people of my political persuasion really got behind a political leader—the hero-worship around Obama has always turned me off. The idea of worshiping a politician isn't just unpalatable to me, it's foreign; I can admire political leaders—I admire Obama—but I know they'll always let me down. Pleasing everybody all the time is not a part of the politician's job description.

I've always been a little cold to Obama because I feel he's never really acknowledged this—never owned his own fallibility, the fact that he will inevitably let his followers down. His speeches have always been too soaring, too capital-H historical, too full of crowd-pleasing flourishes and fillips, for my taste. Unlike the chanting, worshipful crowds, I wasn't looking for a "climactic moment"; as far as I'm concerned, "plain language"—the type of rhetoric Eli referred to as "middle-brow"—is exactly what yesterday's occasion called for. The notes Obama struck yesterday—we are a nation humbled, my predecessor has done harm to America but we will not be broken, change requires work and responsibility—were exactly the ones I wanted to hear at this moment in history.

This was my favorite part:

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.

It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.

Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor — who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed.

Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

...it's just, you know, an observation.

I was talking to some avowed homosexuals last night and we all agreed that we were 1. thrilled to bits about our new president... but slightly disappointed that the gays didn't get a shout-out during the inauguration yesterday. But no one was so disappointed that it ruined the day for anyone. It was a great fucking day regardless. But, um, everyone else got a shout out—the black man, the red man, the yellow man, the mellow man. Just not the gay man. And considering that the gays got a shout out from Obama when he won the nomination, and a shout out from Obama when he won the election, and a shout out from Obama when he kicked off the inaugural festivities on Sunday, the omission of a shout out to the gays from the inauguration itself seemed conspicuous.

But no one was all that upset by the omission; again, it didn't spoil the day for anyone and any feathers ruffled by the lack of a shout out—and the inclusion of Rick Warren—were smoothed over when WhiteHouse.gov went live and we all saw the prominent play gay rights got on "The Agenda" section of the website.

"Still," one of my homosexual friends emailed me this morning, "it would've been great if the awesome black preacher at the end had added us to his list: 'Where black won't be asked to step back; where brown can stick around; where yellow can be mellow; where the red man can get ahead, man; where gay can stay; where white will embrace what's right.' Just four more words. Wouldn't that have been amazing?"

Yes, it would've been amazing. But you know what will be even more amazing? Obama delivering on his agenda for gay and lesbian civil rights. He's president now. We don't need anymore shout-outs. We need results. We want—what's that word again? Oh, yeah: change.

Sorry, but there's still nothing all that funny to report from the bus full of comedians. Close, but certainly no exploding cigar: Somewhere south of New Jersey, one of the bus-riding comedians read aloud from some sort of wireless device news that President Obama—President Obama! first time I've written that! feels lovely!—news that President Obama had signed an executive order that will force a change in lobbyist behavior. Then another comedian, a white guy, analyzed: "That's sorta like saying, 'Stop watcha doin, cause I'ma bout to ruin, the image and the style that you're used to..."

But where was I? Oh yeah. We in the ticketed area had just been ordered to take our seats, and the standing masses outside had good-naturedly heckled us, and we had heckled ourselves, too, and then we dutifully sat down to watch the inauguration ceremony.

I really loved this interplay between the world of the crowd and the world of the privileged. When now-former president George W. Bush was introduced, the crowd on the Mall sang: Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye. And the polite people with tickets—because, for the most part, one does not get tickets to watch the inauguration up close without having conformed to a certain sort of decorum for most of his or her life, and thus most all of these ticketed people were trying to behave extremely properly—these polite people with tickets just did not know what to do. A scattered few sang along. But the rest smiled quietly, or scowled loudly. When, later, Bush walked onto the podium, the Mall crowd welcomed him into the cold air with more than a million boos. By then, something had broken down in the proper sections of the proper section, and the ticketed people booed right along with them.

I'm still getting texts from Barack. Yesterday they were practical. I was told at one point that it was too late to take a certain route to the Mall, and that I should take 14th instead. Although I was 3,000 miles away, it was thoughtful of him to mention it. After the speech, I received a message encouraging me to discourage trampling:

Barack Obama is now the 44th President of the United States. Please stay & watch the parade on the jumbotrons. Encourage your neighbors to exit the Mall slowly.

Later in the afternoon I received this:

Reply to this msg w/your wishes for President Obama. Text photos of your event to 202-503-6207 for on-air use. Terms at ...

I did not text any wishes and am not sure whether I was supposed to send the sort of wishes one might describe as "best" or "warm," or the sort that are more like "here's what I wish you would do." In any case, I like these texts.