From a January 10 Associated Press dispatch: "President-elect Bush has decided not to include a poet at his inauguration. A spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Natalie Rule, cited no reason for his decision. John F. Kennedy started the tradition of having a poet speak at the inauguration in 1961 with Robert Frost, but no other president followed suit until President Clinton."
As Mickey Kaus pointed out on his kausfiles.com site, "What kind of a 'tradition' is it if nobody followed it?" Kaus's answer: "Guess it's a tradition if a) Kennedy did it; b) two Democrats do it; or c) the unconsciously-biased arts-lovin' Camelot-besotted liberal media elite wants it to be a tradition!"