This week, the big story for political minded DCers is Inauguration. Now that the big event is days away, the complaints of those who think the massive party is in poor taste with regard to the recent tsunami tragedy and the gripes of local commentators that Washington’s getting stuck with a massively unfair chunk of the bill have started to fade from the newspapers, soon to replaced by those who ask more immediate questions: Can you get me into the ball? Sweet fancy Moses, what is she wearing? And of course, what do you mean I can’t park here? You can count on your scrappy pals at DCist to get you all the coverage we can from behind the security cordon.

And speaking of security, just in time for this week’s festivities and the ensuing changeover, President Bush has found a new candidate for the Office of Homeland Security. Chertoff (seen with President Bush in this White House photo), a former federal prosecutor from New Jersey, has worked for Democrats and Republicans, and is known for leading the investigation into Vince Foster’s suicide as well as stepping forward to call the shots at the Justice Department immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, while Attorney General John Ashcroft struggled to return to Washington from an interrupted trip to Milwaukee.

Yet, for all these accomplishements, the aspect of Chertoff’s career President Bush was quickest to highlight was his confirmability taking careful pains to highlight the fact that Chertoff has already in his career been confirmed by the Senate on three seperate occasions. After the fallout from Bush’s hilariously unconfirmable first nominee, Bernard Kerik, it’s the president’s way of telling the Senate: “It’ll be your fault if you can’t confirm this nominee, not mine.”