Photograph: AP

Barack Obama's cynical attempt to endear himself to the American people is so Machiavellian and calculating that he even went so far as to father two daughters who are enormously popular with the public, and who spent yesterday's inauguration ceremony being by turns either adorable or just kind of well-adjusted and normal, as this this Huffington Post photo gallery demonstrates. Meanwhile, the Bush twins send advice in the form of an open letter to Sasha and Malia, who must be getting tired of receiving all these letters by now. Anyway, all in all, it's heartwarming that children will be living in the White House for the first time in recent memory, and that its corridors will once more resound to shrieks of childlike glee not heard there since George Bush figured out how to operate the remote-control curtains in the State Dining Room. [Huffington Post]