Posted 4:56 PM by steve

Sorry, but I can't get excited about Bush's inauguration...

I'm happy it's Bush and not Kerry being sworn in. I'm happy it's the moonbats who are protesting. I'm happy Rehnquist is healthy enough to administer the oath. I'm happy that Mapes and Rather (and Jennings and Brokaw and and and and) aren't celebrating their contribution to Kerry's election.

But the inauguration - any inauguration - is mostly a celebration of what happened in the past. It's the final dance step in ratifying the results of the election that took place over two months ago. I don't want to spend my time now celebrating what happened that far in the past. The election, except for a handful of Democrat bitter-enders, is over. It's oh-so-then. It's history. It's in the archives, baby. And I can do without the inaugural balls. It's not that I'm not upset over the money being spent on them, I don't buy into the argument that but for the money being spent on the inaugural festivities we would spend more on armored Humvees or tsunami aid. I just can't get excited about having a party now to celebrate what happened two months ago. It didn't take Boston two months to hold their World Series celebration. I didn't wait 2 months to celebrate getting married. When I do something right at work, I don't get to celebrate for two months. The time for celebrating Bush's re-election was two months ago. Which is precisely when I celebrated it.

The inauguration is also a lot of talk, talk about the future. Well, I don't want to hear Bush talk about the future. I know what he wants to do. I've heard him (probably too) many times before. We've all heard him before, at least those of us who were paying attention during the campaign (and if you weren't, you're not likely to be listening to him now). It doesn't matter that he uses fancy words to describe his lofty dreams. It's all just talk. What I want is action. I want to see things actually happening. What I want to see is Bush actually taking (more) steps to fight terrorism across the globe and to keep us safe at home. I want to see steps actually being taken to fix Social Security and Medicare. I want to see steps actually being taken that advances the 'ownership society'.

So forgive me for not being out on Pennsylvania Avenue today, waiting in the cold so I could wave for a couple of seconds to a limo window as it went down the street. Forgive me for not putting on my tux and going to one of the balls (which one? the one that sent me the form letter saying that for a mere thousand or so dollars that I too could have the honor of standing in a crowd of thousands of other schmucks sipping bad champagne and waiting for some Administration poohbah to make their token appearance before they went off to where the real fun was).

As I said, I'm just not that excited...