First off, we have a new "Think Again" column entitled "Free Ride to the Finish Line," about guess who, which is here.

Second off, I have nothing much to say about the inauguration, in part because I just do, and in part because on my way there, I witnessed, from about ten feet away, the person run over by the subway car, and I was too upset afterward to actually find my way to the Capitol, though with the way things were, that might not have helped. I listened to the speech from a chair in a Mexican restaurant, but I did not see it. Still, it was pretty good, I thought.

Here's Pierce a day early. I'll have the rest of the mail tomorrow. Thanks for saying hello.

CHARLES PIERCE

NEWTON, MA.

Hey Doc:

"And here I sit so patiently/Waiting to find out what price/You have to pay to get out of/Going through all these things twice."

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "How Can You Leave Me Now? (The New Orleans Jazz Band)--I solemnly swear that I will execute my love for New Orleans faithfully.

Short Takes:

Part The First: How about we all get together and agree as a nation to take a six-month moratorium on anything that has to do with Abraham Lincoln? Let's give the poor old soul a rest.

Part The Second: OK, now the bad stuff. That fiasco on Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was so utterly, toweringly, transcendently lame that you'd have thought Chuck Berry had died as a child. I'm sure the fellow-feeling on the mall was fabulous, but, goddamn, was that a terrible concert. If it weren't for U2 and the closing hootenanny -- Thank God that Pete and Bruce decided to sing even the pinko verses, but they at least should have invited Arlo up there to sing his pappy's song with them--it could have been easily confused with my daughter's seventh-grade musicale.

We couldn't get ALL of Marian Anderson, instead of Josh (Will Emote For Food) Groban and whoever that woman was? And Bettie Levette does not need Jon Bon F**king Jovi to help out on "Change Is Gonna Come," much less take the last two choruses. James Taylor? We can't do better than James Taylor, who proceeded to sing a song that makes "Sweet Baby James" sound like "I Fought The Law"? A rock-and-roll medley that begins with the pustulating swill of "American Pie," and in any case is sung by Garth Brooks? Not a single solitary act from New Orleans? Not one of the Marsalises was free? How about instead of Will I.Am and Sheryl Crow doing "One Love," we invite the damn Neville Brothers?

And that's not even getting to the preposterous spoken word segments in which everybody had trouble with the prompters and the echoes. Has Tom Hanks shut up yet? It's a celebration honoring the inauguration of a Democratic progressive, and yet there's room for some platitudinous bull**it from Ronald Reagan, but none for, say, the "We shall overcome" section of LBJ's voting-rights speech? Joe Biden's Daltrey-esque bellowing was the closest thing the show had to a true rock-and-roll moment. I gotta tell you, post-partisanship sure makes for one lousy show.

Part The Third: I spent some time on Monday and Tuesday monitoring the superstars of wingnut radio and, my god, are those folks the living definition of "We got nothin'" these days. Laura Ingraham was reduced to sneering at -- and I am not making this up, Dr. Freud--the size of the brush that Obama was using to paint that school on Monday. (Also, every other call during the time I was listening came from Mississippi or South Carolina.) On Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh amused himself by bleeping out Obama's middle name while replaying Obama's taking of the oath. All the while, of course, a couple of million people danced joyously all around them. Some garden parties are so big, you don't even notice the skunks.

Part The Fourth: Things I did not know before Tuesday: that John Quincy Adams took the oath with his hand on a volume of constitutional law, and not on a Bible. This immediately made him my favorite president named Adams.

Part The Last: My friend, Bob Ryan, the quintessential American sportswriter, pointed out that Aretha's remarkable headgear on Tuesday was unquestionably a tribute to the late Bessie Smith. Surprised that never occurred to Gibson or Stephanopolous.

For several years now, I have advocated marching the entire Washington press corps off to a Journalism re-education camp in the Smokies. The bright young cats 'n kittens at Ye Old House Of Mulch For Brains, of course, would be at the head of the column. They've already produced what is likely going to remain the most singularly dumbassed analysis of the entire Obama Era.

This is the distilled essence of what you get when political journalism becomes only about politics--worse, when it becomes only about Washington politics. (And it doesn't even really succeed at that. Is there an ounce of data proving that President Obama would be advantaged by taking any of these idiotic suggestions?) It is also the distilled essence of what happens to political journalism when so many people who practice it can't really write any more. (Which is why we should all give thanks for the likes of Ryan Lizza at The New Yorker.) Is there any indication in this piece that either author -- most notably, the egregious Harris, who debased himself forever by trolling for support from that greasy little grifter Matt Drudge--ever have reported anything in their lives, beyond polling data and campaign gossip?

What possible resonance does any of this nonsense have in the life of anyone who lives anywhere else in the country? An out-of-work factory worker's going to get better healthcare because Obama slaps around the AFL-CIO? Do you think any of these people knows anything about how Social Security actually works in the world? They know it as a political marker, nothing more. They assess its value in terms of political advantage; they sure as hell don't assess its value as a social program, since they clearly don't have the rumor of a clue about that.

Say what you will about the smug, arrogant bright-kid syndrome afflicting The New Republic. At the very least, they have people who occasionally get on an airplane for reasons beyond covering a campaign. The Politico is the work of clowns and mountebanks, not journalists. People in this business should be laughing at it.

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