It’s been a week, and I haven’t had a chance to post my thoughts about the inauguration yet. Basically, I thought it was a great speech, although of course it went on a bit too long and he had his typical problems with flowery rhetoric. The very subdued nature of the celebration and the amount of time he spent talking about the tsunami and about the plight of civilians in Iraq made me proud that I’d voted for him. His call for personal sacrifice sounded kind of Kennedyesque, but I worry that it’s not going to go over politically, even though he was too wishy-washy to be very concrete about it. We’ll see, I guess.

On a related topic, I thought the decision to ask Powell to stay was a really good idea, despite how upset I am with Powell for putting political loyalty ahead of the good of the country in the last administration. (And in general, I think the surprising number of Republicans in the new cabinet show what it really means to be a “uniter, not a divider” — although a lot of them are Republicans who probably couldn’t get the president’s ear in the previous administration.) I wonder what Powell’s life must have been like between that announcement and the inauguration; I’m sure it’s no accident we haven’t seen much of him. I’m guessing cabinet meetings have been a bit chilly lately.

The weirdest thing about the inauguration, though, was Edwards’ hat. Top hats are a bit, um, unusual these days, and does anybody know what “In this Style 10/6” means?