The Daily Beast has the photo as President Obama left the inaugural platform.

President Obama is bringing his campaign pollster, David Simas, into White House, BuzzFeed reports, “part of a broader migration of political staff into government as he gears up to sell his second term agenda to the American people.”

“The move comes amid a White House reshuffle where a host of aides who have worked in the administration for years have decided to leave and others have moved up.”

Other moves: “Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough will be announced Friday as the new White House Chief of Staff to replace Jack Lew, who Obama nominated to be the next Treasury Secretary. Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer is being promoted to replace departing Senior Adviser David Plouffe. His deputy, Jennifer Palmieri, will be the new Communications Director. Rob Nabors, Obama’s Director of Legislative Affairs, will become Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy — a position to expand his influence on domestic policy.”

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sit down for a joint interview to air on 60 Minutes this weekend.

Politico: “This is not only the first joint interview for Obama and Clinton, but it is also the first sit-down television interview that Obama has given with anyone other than first lady Michelle Obama.”

Washington Post: “First, get those skeletons out of the closet pronto, says Tom Korologos, who shepherded many a nominee of Presidents Reagan and Bush I through the thorny thicket to confirmation. If anyone from the White House or a surrogate comes sniffing around, immediately disclose anything in your past that might prove embarrassing to the president (or whoever is doing the appointing)…”

“Then, once you’re on a list, it’s your public behavior that counts. In this phase, discretion isn’t just the better part of valor, experts say — it’s the whole thing. Lehane says the best course of action is to avoid talking to the press altogether (though it pains the Loop to pass on this advice).”

“We’re told it’s best to watch what you say — even to your friends. And to watch what your spouse says. Don’t talk about getting the job.”

A new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds Hillary Clinton is significantly more popular than Joe BIden.

Clinton’s favorability rating is 67% as compared to Biden’s 48%. The outgoing secretary of state also outperforms the vice president in intensity of sentiment with more than twice as many Americans see Clinton “strongly” favorably than strongly unfavorably – 35% vs. 14% – while Biden breaks even, 22% vs. 23%, in this measure.

“The Constitution may promise President Obama another four years in the White House, but political reality calls for a far shorter time frame: he has perhaps as little as a year to accomplish his big-ticket goals for a second term,” the New York Times reports.

“Tensions are already emerging between the White House and some Democrats about how much emphasis the president and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should give their gun control measures and whether a drawn-out debate over the Second Amendment could imperil the rest of the party’s initiatives, particularly on immigration.”

Beyoncé did not sing the national anthem live at President Obama’s inauguration, the London Times reports.

“Millions of viewers around the world were stunned by the singer’s spectacular rendition of the anthem but The Times has learnt that she was lip-syncing to a pre-recorded backing track.”

The Cloakroom: 5 unmistakable shots at Republicans in President Obama’s inaugural address. 

Rapper Lupe Fiasco was escorted off the stage at an inaugural party last night after spending 30 minutes on an anti-war song, Politico reports.

Now This News shows Fiasco dropping lines critical of President Obama before the lights went off and security escorted him off the stage.

The New York Times has a good graphic identifying the notables sitting on the stage with President Obama yesterday.

“I surprised myself by turning to him and saying, ‘Thank you. Thanks for the chance, the chance to continue to serve.'”

— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by the Washington Post, recounting what he said to President Obama as they left the inaugural platform.

Dan Balz: “President Obama has never lacked for confidence, but rarely has that attribute been on display as clearly as on Monday in an inaugural address that underscored the distance he has traveled after four contentious years in office. This was not the politician who campaigned in 2008 on themes of transcending the divisive politics of the past, though there were ritual calls for the country and its political leaders to seize this moment together. Instead, it was a president who has accepted the reality of those divisions and is determined to prevail on his terms.”

Ezra Klein: “In 2009, Barack Obama came to change Washington. Today’s speech showed how much Washington has changed him.”

“It was a fine speech, but I didn’t hear any conciliatory remarks. I didn’t see any specific reference like, ‘I reach out my hand to the other side of the aisle.'”

— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by the New York Times, on President Obama’s second inaugural address.

Bloomberg reports President Obama and his family arrived at St. John’s at 8:35 am ET and the service ended at 9:39.

Obama personally sent this tweet at 9:25:

I’m honored and grateful that we have a chance to finish what we started. Our work begins today. Let’s go. -bo

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 21, 2013

Andrew Sullivan: “If you have long believed, as I have, that this man could easily become the liberal Reagan by the end of his second term… then this speech will not have surprised you.”

James Fallows: “I was expecting an anodyne tone-poem about healing national wounds,
surmounting partisanship, and so on. As has often been the case, Obama
confounded expectations — mine, at least. Four years ago, when people
were expecting a barn-burner, the newly inaugurated president Obama gave
a deliberately downbeat, sober-toned presentation about the long
challenges ahead. Now — well, it’s almost as if he has won re-election
and knows he will never have to run again and hears the clock ticking on
his last chance to say what he cares about. If anyone were wondering
whether Obama wanted to lower expectations for his second term … no,
he apparently does not.”

Ezra Klein: “In his first term, Obama changed policy. In his second, he wants to change minds.”

Chris Cillizza: “This was a speech that could only be given by someone who knew that he would never have to run for re-election again… This was Obama unbound. Distill Obama’s speech to a single sentence and that sentence is: ‘I’m the president, deal with it.'”

Ta-Nehisi Coates: “There was a time when merely stating the ideas Obama put forth would have gotten you killed.”

E.J. Dionne: “Some will no doubt think (and write) that Obama should have sought more
lofty and non-partisan ground. The problem with this critique is that it
asks Obama to speak as if the last four years had not happened.”

Greg Sargent: “Today, Obama all but declared ideological victory.”

Matthew Continetti: “It is of course possible that the inauguration of a reelected president is his moment of maximum triumph. It is of course possible that Obama’s second term may turn out like George W. Bush’s, when the lyricism and passion of the second inaugural collided with the realities of strategic miscalculations and unexpected events. I have my doubts. What I do not doubt is that the generation of conservatives and Republicans who return one day to power will be forced to reckon with the consequences of the Obama revolution, just as a generation of defeated liberals were forced to confront and in some cases accept the revolution of Ronald Reagan.”

Here is the full text of President Obama’s second inaugural address on Jan. 21, 2013, as prepared for delivery:

Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the
enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our
democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the
colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our
names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our
allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two
centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness.”

[Read more…]

“You didn’t mess up.”

— Sasha Obama, quoted by NBC News, whispering to her father after he took the oath of office yesterday.