Inauguration thoughts we should all be able to agree on

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

[BackInTex]

sss:

Does anyone on this Bored really think there aren't a whole lot of people in this country who have sky-high expectations about what they think Obama is going to accomplish?

George W Bush has set the bar so low for so long that expectations do not have to be "sky-high". About chin high should do it.

So Obama will easily achieve my expectation that we suffer another major terriost action on home soil.

O.K. Other than that, the low bar is pretty much all good things. But I don't think Obama will clear it on securing our borders. For some reason white or black politicians can't jump there.

[Jeemie]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

That's my problem too.

And I understand the history of the moment, but this thing is also costing about $140 million...over three times what Bush's second inaguration (which was the most expensive ever at the time) cost.

With our country in such dire straits, this is an expense that's in very poor taste.

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

That's my problem too.

And I understand the history of the moment, but this thing is also costing about $140 million...over three times what Bush's second inauguration (which was the most expensive ever at the time) cost.

With our country in such dire straits, this is an expense that's in very poor taste.

Thank you for saying this. I was thinking the same thing and started writing it, but then changed my mind, because I didn't wantto start anything.

Our school district is losing $20 million dollars in funding over the next two years and the State of California is talking about issuing I.O.U's in lieu of tax refunds. Hopefully the dog and pony show that is going on in Washington will restore some consumer confidence and result in positive momentum for this country.

[SportsFan68]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

That's my problem too.

And I understand the history of the moment, but this thing is also costing about $140 million...over three times what Bush's second inaguration (which was the most expensive ever at the time) cost.

With our country in such dire straits, this is an expense that's in very poor taste.

It can't be helped. When you round up an extra two million people into a space that was designed for a few hundred thousand, you must spend what it takes to avert foreseeable problems -- or disasters.

[eyégor]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

\

Gee, is something happening today? I hadn't noticed.

Best way to run an inauguration -
1) Stick a holy book in front of the Pres-elect
2) Have him take the oath (gender neutral masculine used here)
3) Put him to work

Save the speechifying fot the State of the Union

[BackInTex]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

That's my problem too.

And I understand the history of the moment, but this thing is also costing about $140 million...over three times what Bush's second inauguration (which was the most expensive ever at the time) cost.

With our country in such dire straits, this is an expense that's in very poor taste.

Thank you for saying this. I was thinking the same thing and started writing it, but then changed my mind, because I didn't wantto start anything.

Our school district is losing $20 million dollars in funding over the next two years and the State of California is talking about issuing I.O.U's in lieu of tax refunds. Hopefully the dog and pony show that is going on in Washington will restore some consumer confidence and result in positive momentum for this country.

You can't blame Obama. Blame the media. They are the ones that have made him out to be royalty, or the Mesiah. He just ran for President, and won. Now he must take the oath. The media marketed him so much that 2 million fans must be there.

Besides, a good party is just what this country needs.

[silverscreenselect]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

That's my problem too.

I was too young to really remember what the JFK innauguration was like, but I've never experienced anything like this that I can remember. There's a difference between hopes and expectations. I had high hopes for the Clinton and Carter administrations, but I certainly didn't expect miracles to happen. I doubt any of the more conservative members of this Bored had similar lofty expectations during the Republican presidencies.

People are expecting greater things out of Obama than anyone in the past. In large part, he has contributed to this during the campaign by inviting comparisons of himself to Lincoln, FDR, and JFK, although he's trying to dial those expectations down now.

Most presidents have viewed the Presidency as a method of getting what they want accomplished, either through visionary ideas (like FDR and Reagan) or through skillful use of administrative tactics (like Clinton or Bush I). I think that George W. Bush wanted the Presidency as a personal thing, a way of proving his worth as a person and righting slights done him and his family in the past. This is why he was, for the most part, more than content to turn things over to Cheney and others. Obama, I believe, wants the Presidency as a personal thing as well; he wants to be King and President is the closest that we have to that in this country. Hence the pomposity of the Obama "seal," the Roman columns at his acceptance speech, the Berlin speech and the others. The question is whether he's ready for the real work of the job.

[Tocqueville3]

My problem with today is that it seems like too much of a coronation.

That's my problem too.

And I understand the history of the moment, but this thing is also costing about $140 million...over three times what Bush's second inaguration (which was the most expensive ever at the time) cost.

With our country in such dire straits, this is an expense that's in very poor taste.

It can't be helped. When you round up an extra two million people into a space that was designed for a few hundred thousand, you must spend what it takes to avert foreseeable problems -- or disasters.

Baloney. It most certainly can be helped. Obama could have easily led by example and said he didn't want a big extravaganza because it would be in poor taste to be overly extravagant while there were people suffering in this country. But instead he chose to act in poor taste and spend 150 million dollars (or more) on a bunch of pomp and circumstance. Talk about shameful. Somehow, I don't expect anything less from him.

[Jeemie]

It can't be helped. When you round up an extra two million people into a space that was designed for a few hundred thousand, you must spend what it takes to avert foreseeable problems -- or disasters.

Yes- it could be helped.

It did not have to be a four-day celebration.

[gotribego26]

Save the speechifying fot the State of the Union

Inaugral addresses and Stae of the Union speeches serve very different purposes. I think there is a reason that we remember Inaugural addresses much more than State of the Union addresses.

[Weyoun]

He has a good speaking voice, but I have always found him to be an awfully cliched speaker. It felt like a greatest hits of better speeches - with a few policy approaches that will be fleshed out in the State of the Union tossed in. Sorta like the music before - bland, only soaring when it quoted Aaron Copland.

[eyégor]

Save the speechifying fot the State of the Union

Inaugral addresses and Stae of the Union speeches serve very different purposes. I think there is a reason that we remember Inaugural addresses much more than State of the Union addresses.

Maybe so, but how many can you quote besides Kennedy's? I'm setting the over/under at 1

[BackInTex]

Save the speechifying fot the State of the Union

Inaugral addresses and Stae of the Union speeches serve very different purposes. I think there is a reason that we remember Inaugural addresses much more than State of the Union addresses.

Maybe so, but how many can you quote besides Kennedy's? I'm setting the over/under at 1

"I did not have sex with that..." Oh wait, that was a different speech.

[Weyoun]

Save the speechifying fot the State of the Union

Inaugral addresses and Stae of the Union speeches serve very different purposes. I think there is a reason that we remember Inaugural addresses much more than State of the Union addresses.

Maybe so, but how many can you quote besides Kennedy's? I'm setting the over/under at 1

Well, Washington's first and both of Lincoln's. And Obama has tried to emulate those too. Shoot for Coolidge and surprise everyone.

Of course the larger point is that political oratory in our country is dead.

[gotribego26]

Save the speechifying fot the State of the Union

Inaugral addresses and Stae of the Union speeches serve very different purposes. I think there is a reason that we remember Inaugural addresses much more than State of the Union addresses.

Maybe so, but how many can you quote besides Kennedy's? I'm setting the over/under at 1

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. it is the problem- Reagan 1981

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - FDR 1933

It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world. - Bush 41 - 1989

Those come to mind - There may be others

[smilergrogan]

If you add an emoticon at the end, you can say whatever you want and nobody can disagree or take offense. Because you were j/k!

Some people seem to think so, anyway.

(I was actually just trying to add a little levity to the situation.)

There needs to be an emoticon for smart - maybe one with wild white hair and smoking a pipe. Call it an Einsteinie. That way, whenever you write something stupid, you can just append an Einsteinie to it and everyone will know it was meant to be really intelligent.

[SportsFan68]

Starting just shy of a year ago, when we had 90 people show up for a precinct caucus that attracted three voters three years ago, events and processes always seemed to be *that* close to veering out of control and into disaster. In more than two decades of active political participation, I've never seen turnout like we had this year to everything.

Y'all can call it unneeded and wasteful spectacle. I call it smart organization and administration, giving unprecedented numbers of people things to do and watch and participate in so that things never veered so far off the road that people got badly hurt. I heard last night about some minor injuries. Y'all criticize what seem to be excesses. I applaud them, because I think those minor injuries would quickly have escalated into major mayhem without the extra planning and yes, money spent.

Can you imagine what you'd be saying if the event had degenerated into mayhem? I can. I like it better this way.

[tlynn78]

Our governor decided to cancel his Inaugural Ball this year because "it was inappropriate to spend 90 thousand dollars when so many people are struggling." This made no sense to me. The people who are struggling most, at least in this state, are the ones in service-sector jobs. The very ones losing out when the Ball is cancelled - hotel workers, food service people, sales people. Since that 90K is not tax money, but private sector money - that means (another) 90K that ISN'T going back into stimulating the economy, right? Am I missing something?

I do agree with those troubled by the 'coronation' thing. I don't fault $$ spent on security, crowd control, etc., however. To do otherwise would be inviting trouble, to say the least.


t.

[TheCalvinator24]

I don't get the criticisms of the inauguration celebrations. Even if this weren't an historic transfer, we should lavishly celebrate the peaceful transfer of power that we enjoy.

[peacock2121]

If this event really does result in the youth of our country, even just a small portion of them, getting that if they work hard, they really can be anything they set their sights on and don't quit on. If they really see that they have options beyond what their parents had, I do not have any problem with the money spent.

This is an historic inauguration - it deserves a special place in our collective consciousness.

[Tocqueville3]

Starting just shy of a year ago, when we had 90 people show up for a precinct caucus that attracted three voters three years ago, events and processes always seemed to be *that* close to veering out of control and into disaster. In more than two decades of active political participation, I've never seen turnout like we had this year to everything.

Y'all can call it unneeded and wasteful spectacle. I call it smart organization and administration, giving unprecedented numbers of people things to do and watch and participate in so that things never veered so far off the road that people got badly hurt. I heard last night about some minor injuries. Y'all criticize what seem to be excesses. I applaud them, because I think those minor injuries would quickly have escalated into major mayhem without the extra planning and yes, money spent.

Can you imagine what you'd be saying if the event had degenerated into mayhem? I can. I like it better this way.

All of that so called "mayhem" could have been avoided if Obama had just said "Look, times are tough. I don't want you all to spend your hard earned money on plane tickets and bus tickets and gasoline and lodging and food and all the other travel expenses that go along with the trip to DC for my inauguration. Stay at home and gather with your friends and watch me get inaugurated from home. Our country needs to learn how to practice some fiscal self control and I want to start by setting the example. Instead of having the normal festivities that accompany an inaguration this time we are going to be more subdued. Give me a chance to turn this economy around and hopefully if I am elected again in another 4 years then we can have an inaugural celebration like no other. But for now it would be in poor taste for me to expect you to make that sort of sacrifice for me."

All he had to do was set the tone and he could have avoided the look of hypocrisy that accompanies him spending 150 million taxpayer dollars on a bunch of big show. I mean what a slap in the face for someone who is out of work and can't pay their heating bill for them to see Obama and his big extravaganza a their expense. Try telling them it's "necessary".

[Jeemie]

Starting just shy of a year ago, when we had 90 people show up for a precinct caucus that attracted three voters three years ago, events and processes always seemed to be *that* close to veering out of control and into disaster. In more than two decades of active political participation, I've never seen turnout like we had this year to everything.

Y'all can call it unneeded and wasteful spectacle. I call it smart organization and administration, giving unprecedented numbers of people things to do and watch and participate in so that things never veered so far off the road that people got badly hurt. I heard last night about some minor injuries. Y'all criticize what seem to be excesses. I applaud them, because I think those minor injuries would quickly have escalated into major mayhem without the extra planning and yes, money spent.

Can you imagine what you'd be saying if the event had degenerated into mayhem? I can. I like it better this way.

Next time, respond to what I said, as opposed to constructing a straw man and responding to that.

[silverscreenselect]

Those come to mind - There may be others

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.

[gotribego26]

All he had to do was set the tone and he could have avoided the look of hypocrisy that accompanies him spending 150 million taxpayer dollars on a bunch of big show. I mean what a slap in the face for someone who is out of work and can't pay their heating bill for them to see Obama and his big extravaganza a their expense. Try telling them it's "necessary".

The amount we committed for the TARP could have paid for 4,666 of these excessive extravaganzas. And now we are being told we should spend enough on the Stimilus plan to pay for another 5,000 of these.

A large portion of the $150 million was to pay for security for a crowd that is 5 times what any other inauguration has drawn.

You are one bitter human being.