President Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts, after Roberts' mangling of the constitutional oath of office on Tuesday, tried it again Wednesday night in the Map Room of the White House, "out of an abundance of caution," said White House counsel Greg Craig.

This time it went well, the Washington Post reports:

"Are you ready to take the oath?" Roberts asked.

"I am, and we're going to do it very slowly," Obama replied.

After a flawless recitation that included no Bible and took 25 seconds, the Post said, "Roberts smiled and said, 'Congratulations, again.' "

To read more of the story, go here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Though the handwritten sign on the door said "Ball," the $100-a-head Minnesota DFL affair in the back room of a Veterans of Foreign Affairs bar in a tad seedy part of Washington was a far cry from the glitz of the 100 or so other balls about the city Tuesday evening following the inauguration of President Barack Obama. No matter. The food was good and there was plenty of it, and, as Sen. Amy Klobuchar pointed out, it was the only ball she would attend that night where she felt comfortable wearing flatter shoes and knew everybody.

Fancy wear ran the gamut, from tuxes and sparkling gowns to Lake Wobegon wool pants and plaid shirts. Coats were piled up on a table in the back corner of the room, where it was cash bar and a DJ spinning the tunes.

Early in the evening DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez introduced Klobuchar as Minnesota's senior and junior senator. Melendez said some had asked him if Al Franken would be lower in seniority than Roland  Burris, Illinois' most recently named senator to replace Obama. Melendez reported that under the Constitution all new senators would be equal in seniority.

Klobuchar jumped in to say Melendez was correct, "but Illinois is a little bigger than Minnesota."

Franken gave an update on the status of the recount. He said he had been on the Mall earlier and saw Obama's swearing in, although "not from the same vantage point as Amy."

"We're going to be able to tell our kids  that this generation responded to the many crises we face," "And I will be there. Not very high up, but I'll be there."

To at least one 11-year-old girl and her friends visiting D.C. today for the inauguration, a seat in front of a television in the Rayburn House Office Building trumped seeing the swearing-in live outside in the cold.

You’ll remember Estrella Seals, the girl from Cherokee Heights Elementary on St. Paul’s West Side, and her companion, Robbinsdale Cooper High School junior Jaleice Johnson. They wrote essays that earned them a free trip to D.C. to see the inauguration. MinnPost ran their story Friday.

So, what DID they see today?

“A lot of people, a whole lot of people,’’ their chaperone Titilayo “Titi” Bediako said via cell phone from D.C. about 5 p.m. Eastern time. “It was freezing out there,” she added, sounding exhausted after a day that had the trio on the Capitol Mall about 5:15 a.m.

By about 9 a.m., they were dragging and shivering. And Estrella? “She was clearly miserable, thought her toes would fall off.’’ Bediako said.

So they headed indoors to warmth and refreshment provided for Minnesotans by the Minnesota congressional delegation.

Once inside, they stayed to watch the Inaugural proceedings.

As for the girls, by now back in their D.C. accommodations, they couldn’t come to the phone. Both were sound asleep.

But, their Washington tour doesn’t end till Saturday, so there’s plenty more to see and do, and time for the mercury to rise.

Bediako -- executive director of the Minneapolis-based We Win Institute, which sponsored the Black Excellence contest the girls won -- would have said more. Only her phone clicked off, and subsequent efforts to reconnect failed. The D.C. area experienced cell phone problems today.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., suffered a seizure during an Inauguration Day lunch, Time reports; an Associated Press update  late in the afternoon said doctors blamed fatigue and that Kennedy will be kept overnight in the hospital for observation.

Time quoted former Vice President Walter Mondale:

"We were talking for 20 minutes, telling old war stories. He was keeping us all laughing." And then, said Mondale, "he seemed to go into a seizure ...."

Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who is also in frail health, was wheeled from the lunch as well; he was apparently upset about Kennedy's condition.

You can read more here (Time) and here (AP).

Some change has already come.

Along with a new president, the nation today got a redesigned White House website. 

“Gone was the staid site of the Bush White House, replaced by a dynamic new site reflective of his tech-savvy successor,” said CNN News. 

Al Franken joined the masses on the Mall today to watch Obama's swearing-in.

Seated in the orange section, behind the press corps, Franken told Roll Call that he was OK with his placement.

In a statement released later, Franken said that like so many others, Obama had inspired him "to look towards the future with optimism."

Both Franken and Norm Coleman issued statements this afternoon about President Obama’s Inaugural address.

Excerpt from Franken’s statement: “Today, President Obama made clear what we all know: the challenges we face are significant, and change won't happen overnight. But today, we are one nation united and ready to get to work, with a president ready to lead us. Like so many others, I have been inspired by our new president to look towards the future with optimism, and with the knowledge that there is nothing we can't accomplish together. The next few years will call for bold action and courage on the part of our leaders and our citizens. And I know that, with all of us working together, we will meet that call.”

Excerpt from Coleman’s statement:“Today marks an extraordinary moment in the history of our country.  Watching Barack Obama be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States will forever be etched into the minds of so many of us as one of those moments for which you remember where you were and what you were doing when it happened.  This is a great day for all Americans to come together for the good of our country.  Laurie and I join the millions of Americans in congratulating President Obama and our thoughts and prayers are with he and his family as he assumes the office of the president of the United States.”

The Senate today confirmed seven of President Barack Obama's key appointees: six Cabinet officers and one Cabinet-level nominee, the National Journal reports.

"By unanimous consent, the Senate confirmed at 3:42 p.m. Tuesday the nominations of Obama's picks to lead the departments of Energy (Steven Chu), Education (Arne Duncan), Homeland Security (Janet Napolitano), Interior (Ken Salazar), Veterans Affairs (Eric Shinseki) and Agriculture (Tom Vilsack)," the report said.

"The Senate also confirmed Peter Orszag to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, a Cabinet-level post."

 You can read more of the story here.

The first test of the new government's ability to include all people failed this morning when hundreds of thousands, who had tickets, met closed gates to the inauguration.

Despite lack of information about where to go, or what to do, the Americans who wanted to get into the National Mall to see President Barack Obama were polite, courteous, patient and joyful.

Citizens who got their tickets after an hour's wait Monday in 20-degree temperatures through Sen. Amy Klobuchar were at first buoyed by the location they were assigned, the southwest corner close to the front of the Capitol. The tickets said the gates would open at 9 a.m. and urged people to show up early. But those who were there at 8 a.m. were out of luck at 11:50, when the gates to the mall were closed before they got in. A banner over the security checkpoint and one or two posterboard signs directed ticketholders to the appropriate gate. Otherwise, there was no direction. I got there at 8 a.m. and didn't see a police officer or anyone to direct the crowd until almost noon. Half a dozen people moving in any one direction was enough to start a line, led by people who had no idea where they were going.

Sen. Klobuchar's press secretary said the senator gave out about 550 tickets. He declined to say any more because her office has no knowledge about security matters. 

Occasionally the crowd's frustration erupted in chants of "What's going on?" and "We're fired up. We're ready to go." But those faded out quickly.

In the end, people pressed their noses quietly to the metal gates and listened. At the boom of cannons people knew Obama had taken office and burst into shouts and applause. Then, we could hear the echo of his voice, but it was very difficult to make out exactly what he was saying in his inauguration speech.

But some in the crowd found an answer. People gathered around a woman who held her cell phone high for all to hear as her sister-in-law placed her home phone next to her television.

Pioneer Press writer Richard Chin has a clever approach to inauguration coverage in today's paper: a quiz on inaugural addresses throughout history. The following is among 18 questions in Chin's history quiz: "The United States and other like-minded nations find themselves directly opposed by a regime with contrary aims and a totally different concept of life." You'll need to go here to find that answer.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has supportive words for President Obama, according to the Washington Times.

"It's important for all of us to come together, whether Republican or Democrat," Pawlenty is quoted as saying. He and other Republican governors will attend the inauguration, and that, he said, "sends a message: Hey, look, we're in this together."

"We need to give him a lot of latitude," Pawlenty said. "He wants to be forward-looking, forward-leaning, and we should give him some space in that regard."
The paper says Pawlenty observed that Obama has appeared to be not as left-leaning and more moderate "than he came across in the campaign, " and that he is urging fellow Republicans to give Obama the space he needs after he becomes president to carry out his programs, particularly in trying to fix the economy.