The Post reported today that a report by Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has pointed out several obvious flaws with the inauguration. The report: "pointed to insufficient signs, poor coordination among law enforcement agencies and a lack of personnel to keep order and provide information to visitors." By now everyone who attended the inauguration or who read about the Purple Tunnel of Doom knows the screw-ups. The only thing left of out of the report is a mention of Dionne Warwick's ball flap.

In the report's executive summary, under "crowd management," it does point out a few major gaffes. Crowds were not only huge, they arrived before police officers got to their posts, the report states, adding that ticket holders and non-ticket holders ended up fighting for spots at the same gates. In other areas medium security fencing was either moved or trampled over. The report notes that in the Silver Section, the "snow" fencing had been trampled. In other spots, bike-rack fencing was simply moved.

Read More "Report Cites Obvious Problems With Inauguration" »

Just another case-in-point attesting to why the official probe is Washington's biggest industry. In the aftermath of the inauguration, the Washington Post gave air to complaints from high-flying Obama donors that they weren't frisked extensively enough before being allowed into sensitive areas. If ever there was a more pointed affirmation of a charmed life--complaining about not enough security!

Now a congressman is pushing for an audit of security, on the following basis: "In the interest of ensuring the integrity of Secret Service protective operations, and the security of our nation's leaders, I request that you audit the Secret Service protective security plans for the Inauguration, investigate and identify any deficiencies in security operations," wrote Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) in a letter to some big shot at the Department of Homeland Security.

How 'bout this deficiency, Mr. Congressman?

DCist reports on some economists who studied the impact of the inauguration. So did it boost the local economy? We know Ben's made out. We know the renters did not.

Frozen Tropics reports on some Catholic University architecture students who are studying H Street transportation. Next study topic: Benning Road. Please. Study it.

Southwest...The Little Quadrant That Could eyes some projects that may benefit from Obama's stimulus package. And there's some news about a new design for the South Cap bridge.

River East Idealist gets R.E.E.L.

Borderstan polls folks on whether 15th Street NW should have two-way traffic. We took on this issue a while ago.

D.C. Foodies takes a trip to the Falls Church farmers market. You decide if its worth the ride out there.

A note of thanks to all those who contributed to our Inauguration Flickr pool. Just eighteen days ago, we sent out a call for dope/avant-garde photographs chronicling this seminal/historic/generally rad moment in D.C. history. The pool swelled to a whopping 699 photographs, from which Darrow Montgomery somehow managed to extract the finest three...or four.

Winners, and details on the readers' poll, below the jump.

Read More "Inauguration Photo Contest: Everyone’s a Winner!" »

A while back the Onion and the Washington Post struck a partnership of sorts, and so I thought that a bit of the former's news coverage had bled onto the latter's Web site when I read this: "VIPs: Lack of Security 'Absurd'"

The story, and it's a good one, is that big-time Obama campaign donors--tech CEOs among them--were appalled at how little they were patted down before mingling with other high fliers on Inauguration Day. Here's what one industrialist said: "I didn't think about it at the time, but we went through security and then we were in an open space, freely accessible to the public."

The point here: You know life is good when you complain that the feds aren't hassling you enough.

As loyal readers know, I have recently been given the coveted beat of covering Dionne Warwick almost full time. Warwick was to host one of the American Music Inaugural Balls--specifically the Legends Ball. The Legends Ball, along with the Urban Ball, were canceled at the last minute. This left a lot of people pissed off and a hotel staff left to deal with those hurt feelings and mountains of food. Warwick ended up on the night of January 20 playing Entertainment Tonight reporter at the Purple Ball. Warwick later gave an interview to the Washington Post which confused people.

The ball cancellation issue hasn't gone away. Today, in my e-mail inbox, came a message directly from Dionne Warwick. OK, it's actually directly from Dionne Warwick's publicist! Kevin Sasaki, "Public Relations Representative for Dionne Warwick" writes:

It was with great dismay, regret and disappointment that Ms. Warwick faced with the cancellation of the American Music Legend and Urban Balls to which she agreed to lend her name. When asked to lend her name as “host,” she was sincerely taken by the premise of what this event promised to be: for her to be associated with a historic gathering of young and old people of all backgrounds to celebrate the inauguration. Like her disenchanted guests, Ms. Warwick, too, was robbed of her name, reputation and her efforts on behalf of this event.

The p.r. flack goes on to talk about just who let Ms. Warwick down.

Read More "Dionne Warwick Defends Self Over Ball Flap" »

In the early morning hours of the inauguration, it became clear that law enforcement as well as the Presidential Inaugural Committee had inadequate plans in place. The Washington Post today does a great job running down the mistakes. Ironically, it was the ticket holders---the ones that hustled to get these much prized slots, put their names on waiting lists, entered lotteries, wrote their congressman, called in favors---that probably fared the worst.

I was at the now-infamous Purple Tunnel Of Doom at about 4 a.m. The tunnel is located just a few steps from D.C. Police headquarters. There were already huge crowds, long lines and chaos. Police were outnumbered and seemed pretty ill-informed. We decided to not deal with that mess and moved on to Capitol Hill. We noticed that there weren't a lot of signs directing ticket holders to the proper place to go. We had Silver tickets. Eventually the signs for silver ticket holders just disappeared. After much map checking (yes, we brought the official maps) and asking around, we finally made our way to the Silver Gate entrance at 3rd and Independence Ave SW.

A huge line had already formed to the right of the gate. I should say "line." Yes, there was a line. And then there was everybody else huddled at the gate like they were getting ready for a marathon. Again, the police were woefully outnumbered. It was one female cop with a bullhorn vs. the rest of us. I documented some of this scene at the time. Again, the scene was a lot easier for non-ticket holders.

At the Silver Gate, what made things a lot worse was the police's inability to do crowd control. The stood around. They made rash decisions. All of the sudden, the police declared the line on the left was invalid. Now, they yelled out that everyone had to form a line to the right. They probably decided this because the left line was too big. There was more room on the right. However, I don't think anybody moved. It was just too hard to tell.

There were definitely thousands by 6 a.m. They weren't formed into a line. They were a mass.

Read More "How Did Law Enforcement Mess Up Obama’s Inauguration?" »

First, the flubbed oath. Then, the debate over whether Joe Biden was president during the Yo-Yo Ma song. And now we find out that Yo-Yo Ma & Co. were miming!

Was anything about this inauguration legit?

This afternoon, I posted about possibility that parts of the National Mall will have to be restored due to millions of people trampling its grass on inauguration day. Well, I went down to the Mall this afternoon. More than two days after Obama's swearing in, the portable toilets are still on the Mall. Hundreds of them! And it's hot out today.

These portable toilets have been there for a while. They were put up days before Tuesday's inaugural ceremonies. I wonder if they've been cleaned out. They are certainly still available for use. So when will the Mall start to take on an overwhelming poop smell?

*photo taken on Tuesday and not necessarily reflective of conditions on the Mall.

The Post's Reliable Source reached Dionne Warwick about the failure that was the American Music Inaugural Balls. We've been chronicling it from the beginning, noting the fallout and the prospect of a lawsuit over the balls' sudden cancellation. We reached out yesterday to the pr firm that was handling the "red carpet" pro bono and they too expressed shock that the ball was canceled saying they too were notified at the last minute.

Warwick ended up at the Purple Ball as a "reporter" for Entertainment Tonight. Reliable Source writes:

"What happened? Warwick, who announced the gala last fall, offered few answers. 'We had no sponsors, and the expense was horrendously high,' the singer told us. (She ended up at the Purple Ball as an 'Entertainment Tonight' correspondent.)

Who was in charge? 'I couldn't begin to tell you,' she said. Both the hotel and a PR agency ID'd the promoter as Guy Draper. That's the same name as Warwick's partner in earlier charitable ventures that raised questions about fiscal management, according to reports by ABC in 1993 and Entertainment Weekly last year. Draper is a former D.C resident and was a city official during Marion Barry's first mayoral term. Draper's voice mail was full yesterday; he did not reply to e-mail."

Warwick should have had more answers. She was the face of these inaugural events. On January 8, she held a press conference to promote her two events. By then, she probably should have known about the sponsorship problems and expenses.

WTOP reports that 3.8 million feet trampled the National Mall during Obama's inauguration. That's what you get when you want an inauguration for the people! The National Park Service plans on assessing the potential damage in the coming days:

"A bond has been set aside for the National Park Service to refurbish the National Mall. The National Park Service will determine how much it will take from the bond once it assesses the condition of the Mall.

Once the turf itself is inspected, officials say it's likely some portions of the Mall will be sectioned off for months.

'The point will be to fence it off with snow fencing for three, four, five months, to allow that turf to regenerate, to regrow, to water it, to reseed it and to make it look as good as we possibly can,' Line says.

One saving grace for the Mall is that the inauguration took place in the middle of the winter - when the grass really isn't growing at all.

'We have to look at what damage there could be into the spring and the summer, when people are going to expect it to look green,' Line says"

It seems like a lot of the Mall will be closed off until summer. Just a guess. The Mall looked pretty trashed in certain sections. At least that's what I saw.

An extremely rare feature, in which we recognize the contributions of our Flickr minions by way of distracting you from the fact that Riggs has neglected to write his Morning Roundup.

Thanks to all who entered our 2009 Inauguration Photo Contest. To date, we've collected 547 photo entries, many of which are reasonably dope. Selected awesomeness below.

But wait! Don't snickr. And certainly don't stop submitting your photos. Next week we kick off our "reader's choice" award, whereby the public makes its preference known via arcane e-voting mechanisms. Just think! If our hard-to-please prize committee passes over your artsy shots, the American people might well be your ticket to ephemeral fame & fabulous prizes!

Check back on Monday for voting details.

Can we keep you, Eliot Swainson?

The guy, after all, has a knack for being in the right place at the right time in this town, Superman-style. First off, the Houston transit cop, on loan to the Metro transit police for the inauguration, saved a 68-year-old woman who fell onto the tracks by rolling her under the lip of a Chinatown/Galley Place platform as a train passed.

Then, as a Houston TV station reported yesterday, he was among the first responders to the deadly rowhouse fire on North Capitol Street on Wednesday. According to CNN, Swainson and others knocked on doors of adjacent houses to evacuate those folks.

Please, can we keep you, please?

Editors have agreed: Dionne Warwick is my new beat. The fallout from the closing of the American Music Inaugural Balls is heating up! One very unsatisfied ticket holder is planning a lawsuit. He called in to WCP headquarters this afternoon. I was able to get the scoop.

Tony Reddick says he bought tickets to both balls spending more than $700 (includes service charges) and chartered a car to take him to the balls at the Marriott Wardman Park where the balls were being held. He says on the morning of the event, he checked the balls' website to see if any more celebrities had been added to the bill. Instead, he found a cancellation noticed. He called the hotel which confirmed the bad news.

Reddick shelled out a lot of cash. He is still disappointed about the last-minute cancellation. “You can’t repay something you missed out on or your limo service or your airplane or hotel," he says. "We were stuck out in the cold."

Reddick notes that Warwick seemed to have a good time at someone else's ball--the Purple Ball. She even took the time to smile before the cameras at the shindig while her fans were getting turned away at the Marriott. People rented cars to take them to the event. Valets had to break the news to them.

Reddick says he is "definitely" planning on filing a lawsuit. Right now he is seeking other victims for his case.

Read More "Dionne Warwick: You’re About To Be Served" »

As faithful readers know, we have been chronicling the mess that was the American Music Inaugural Balls.The hotel where the balls were to be hosted also felt the fallout from the sudden ball cancellations. Perhaps even ball host Dionne Warwick shed a few tears.

On a website associated with the awesome Ms. Warwick, they wrote about the American Music Inaugural Balls' cancellation. They blamed the mysterious production issues:

"The American Music Inaugural Ball Committee has cancelled the 'Ball of Legends' and 'Urban Balls,' and all events associated with the Balls, due to unexpected production issues, it was announced by a Committee Spokesperson."

The "Committee Spokesperson" still doesn't have a name. Nor have any of the organizers come forward with an apology, an excuse, or a method on how people can get their money back. Folks have been directed to a pretty lame website with this simple message:

"Continue to watch this site for information regarding your refund which will occur within 30-45 days."

Not exactly a real confidence builder.