Reply #10: WaPo: Inaugural Excess - This Is the Wrong Time for a Lavish Celebration [View All]

Sunday, January 9, 2005; Page B07

Inaugural Excess

This Is the Wrong Time for a Lavish Celebration

By Bernard Ries


The Presidential Inauguration Committee intends to forge ahead with its resplendent plans for the second Bush inaugural. At the risk of sounding like a Grand Old Party pooper, I'm not thrilled.

What gives me pause is the decision to spend some $40 million-plus at this moment in history. When I first began mulling over this expenditure, I thought it quite unseemly that, at a time when so many Americans and countless Iraqis have been and will be killed and maimed, we should be mounting a spectacle said to celebrate our troops, replete with nine official balls, many unofficial affairs, a youth concert, a parade, a fireworks display, etc. (and, at the Ritz-Carlton, white chocolate cowboy boots). But now, with the appalling misery in Southeast Asia added to the scene, it seems even more obvious that an extravaganza is wholly inappropriate.

Previous presidents have chosen to continue the festive inauguration tradition during wartime. Lincoln was one, although he most certainly didn't spend the 1865 equivalent of $40 million. But I prefer the example of moderation set by Franklin Roosevelt in wartime 1945: a short speech at the White House, a buffet luncheon featuring chicken salad and pound cake -- and that was it. No parade, not a single ball. FDR knew something about propriety.

President Bush, of course, has already had a big inaugural party; in 2001 he enjoyed a four-day, $40 million inauguration. How many $40 million fetes is one man entitled to, I wonder, particularly since we're only transitioning from Bush to Bush. Bill Clinton spent less on his second inauguration ($23.7 million) than on his first ($33 million), and that was, moreover, in a very different context: The economy sparkled, Clinton had won a rousing election victory, we weren't at war -- and a sizable portion of the world had not just fallen apart.

link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57877-2005Jan7.html