1 Wonder what was on that banner the protestors were holding? I saw a quick view of some cops turning the protestors away. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. I'm glad that Bush used "God" many times. :-)

2 Three cheers for our overwhelming elected President! Is the Black Horse Troop related to the Black Watch. I noticed they were created about two generations later.

3 Is the Black Horse Troop related to the Black Watch. I noticed they were created about two generations later. I"m pretty sure that, at the time, the only relevant variable was that they had some black horses available. In subsequent years many of the horses were brown or chestnut, and many had white markings (as mine did in 1965) but they used a substance called "lamp black" on them, to make them uniform. No, no relation to the Black Watch, which is a fine Scottish Regiment with a courageous military tradition.

4 Right you are, Demos!

5 Thank God its Bush and not Kerry, God bless the USA and all freedom loving people throughout the world.

6 Jane: Thank God its Bush and not Kerry, God bless the USA and all freedom loving people throughout the world. Indeed. Over the Christmas/New Years holiday I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the "Little White House" of Harry Truman in Key West. This is where the outlines of the Marshall Plan and the Cold War were established, and where a great deal of the real intellectual work was done. The election of 1948 was, perhaps, the mirror image of this one... with Truman having taken the leap of using nuclear weapons to end WWII and Dewey, the Republican, the "effete easterner" who just didn't get it. Truman was a whisky drinking, poker playing, classical-reading haberdasher from the Midwest who got the "big picture" right. (In fact, if you grew up in that era you probably remember an Armed Forces TV program called "The Big Picture.") There is some deep lesson about political and human nature there, that I haven't quite figured out how to express. But I saw myself and our present era reflected in every relaxed and unselfconscious detail of the Key West Little White House, right down to the seven-sided poker table and the deep turquoise bedroom.

7 Laura, Thumbs up for Bush's re-election. Thumbs down on dragging 'God' into everything he says. Demosophist, if you took part in LBJ's inauguration, that makes you like way old!

8 Soooo fucking not high anymore, thanks to your stoopid blog >_<

9 Demosophist, if you took part in LBJ's inauguration, that makes you like way old! Yeah, like G.W. Bush old! Antediluvian. Truth is, it was like yesterday. Soooo fucking not high anymore, thanks to your stoopid blog >_ Try this. But don't breath through your mouth.

10 What is wrong with being old!?@#

11 DEMOSOPHIST: Never been to the Key West White House. Don't know why my wife hasn't seen it, as that's her kind of thing. We will be heading for the keys in February for my annual go fishing in the warmth trip. Maybe, I'll get to see it. Did I see Kerry getting booed during the ingauguration? I can't believe the prick even showed up. MATT: Piss on ya.

12 Seems there's a push to get religion out of everything. Too bad for those who don't share Bush's religious views. I'm glad he had the balls to stand up for what he believes in, and wasn't ashamed to mention God in his speech.

13 Seems there's a push to get religion out of everything. Too bad for those who don't share Bush's religious views. Although secularism has grown, the growth has been less in the US than in any of the countries that formerly had a central church, so one might be forgiven for thinking that the reason for the persistence of religion in the US is that sects have to compete in a "religious marketplace." It's ironic but this used to also be the case for trade unionism, and one can track the decline of unions rather precisely to the formation of the AFL/CIO, which was supposed to get rid of what was considered at the time "inefficient competition." What Peg Noonan, and a number of other conservatives who fear religious sentiment, don't understand is that within this context of sectarian competition a "religious awakening" will be conditioned to those social and cultural assets that the challenge calls for, just as they were in previous "awakenings" during the Revolution and the Civil War. And their impact will be beyond the set of believers themselves, permeating the larger culture with resolve and insight. Religion is about to experience a major comeback in the culture of the US, but my ear-to-the-ground spies tell me that it won't be exactly what either the religionists or anti-religionists expect.

14 Peggy's latest article is very unlike Peggy. I wonder if someone is writing under he name? I have read three of her books as well as her WSJ articles regularly. This one today is out of character. I can not plut my finger on it but maybe Ronnie's old speech writer is envious? I do not know but something is amiss.

15 Just a quick analysis on "four more years with Bush." Mr Bush represents continuity and not change in the US agenda. The primacy of freedom has been articulated in different ways by presidents as diverse as Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan. Nor is this an exclusively Republican, let alone neoconservative, creed in the modern era. The vast majority of Democrats in Washington essentially agree with Mr Bush about the ends of America's mission in the world. The dispute, and it is an important one, is about the means. Senior Republicans, as well as Democrats, have suggested that the White House should amend its strategy in this second term. To that extent, Mr Bush has quietly been inching toward his opponents. As the careful language he employed two days ago suggests, there is an appreciation that words regarded as admirably plain within the US do not travel easily. In a series of interviews Mr Bush has conceded that some of his phrases have caused unnecessary alarm overseas and resolved to be more cautious. In her testimony before the Senate Foreign Committee, Condoleezza Rice, the incoming Secretary of State, spoke of the importance of a conversation and not a monologue with the outside world and hinted that the balance between the diplomatic and the military aspects of policy would change. This will not be a revolutionary movement. Nor will the differences between some European governments and the Oval Office disappear. The US will continue to regard the threat posed by radical Islamists, the dangers of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the behaviour of rogue states such as North Korea with more urgency than France and Germany. These countries should ask themselves whether their assessment of these perils is so much more modest because of evidence, or the inconvenience that acknowledging their intensity would entail. They might also ponder what it is about the promotion of freedom that they regard as so alien and objectionable.

16 Did you enjoy it - that's the main question??? Cindy

17 I'm looking for any photos of the "spirited" Culver horse that participated in the Inaugural Parade. My daughter was riding as it was bucking and kicking down the parade route and she and the horse were unfortunately dismissed from the parade before passing the President at the reviewing stand. I would appreciate any photos that caught them in action! Thanks