inauguration

FBI whistleblower-turned-activist Coleen Rowley is on a roll. She rips into the City of St. Paul’s report on Republican National Convention law enforcement in a new commentary column, and Tuesday she will join others from Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) in filing formal complaints with Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher over RNC policing tactics. And Rowley’s inquiries into what she suspects was overbroad surveillance during the RNC are starting to bear fruit — of a sort.

This zoom-able online panoramic photo of the presidential inauguration is a “Where’s Waldo” puzzle for fun-loving political junkies (with slight stalker tendencies). One Minnesotan could school those vain attendees who went sans chapeau: U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar knows that hardiness means wearing a hat. And isn’t that Oberstar’s brother-in-beret and fellow committee chairman U.S. Rep. Henry [...]

Minnesota writer Christopher Koehler attended yesterday’s inauguration of President Barack Obama and shared these views of the excitement (and entrepreneurship) of a historic day.

In his inaugural invocation today, the Rev. Rick Warren was subtle about shaming gay-rights protesters but explicit about his Chrisitianity, calling on Jesus by name not once but four times, in four different languages associated with three world religions.

In separate e-mails sent almost simultaneously this evening, Al Franken and former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman offered takes on President Obama’s inauguration as diametrically opposed in style as the Senate contenders are opposed in their rival campaigns. Franken’s is an unadorned, even bland two-paragraph statement about the honor he felt at attending the inauguration and [...]

Minneapolis celebrated President Obama’s inauguration today with new signs ranging from an exuberant “Hooray” in a front yard to a more formal greeting above the downtown Hooters restaurant.

President Barack Obama promised that his inauguration would be different from those of previous presidents, but change doesn’t come easily when it requires shaking influence in Washington.

Headline below huge photo of Obama on Star Tribune’s front page today: 
“Shot at tickets becomes Minnesota get-together”

Two years ago Barack Obama told his early supporters in the nascent “Draft Obama” movement that he wanted no part of a “vanity campaign” in which he would make nice speeches and then lose. He was also wary of developing a “cult of personality,” Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak told Minnesota Public Radio by phone this morning from the site of Obama’s inauguration.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty told MSNBC on Monday that Republicans need to allow President Barack Obama to carry out his agenda, particularly with regard to fixing the economy.
“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.”
Pawlenty and his [...]