A note on the inauguration

John Hawkins over at RWN has a post: The Inauguration Of Obamamandias.

"Today is a great day...to be a liberal, to be a Democrat, and to be naive. Barack Obama is one of the least accomplished men, perhaps even the least accomplished man ever to become President of the United States. He did nothing of note as a community organizer, nothing of note in the Illinois State Senate, nothing of note in the Senate, and despite that, his next stop is the White House.

Given the adulation the media has heaped upon Obama and the "I'm everything to everybody" campaign that he ran, you'd have to expect him to be popular. But, the American people have been gripped by an almost irrational exuberance about Obama's presidency. It has been so over-the-top that it's reminiscent of the post-WW1 phase of history where people actually believed the hype about having just fought the war to end all wars.

Today, instead of understanding that we have an untested President taking over the controls of a lumbering, inefficient, unreasoning beast governed by its unquenchable appetite for power and taxpayer money, you'd think that Superman had just flown own from Krypton to save us all."

Read the whole thing. But John is absolutely correct.

Did I say $150 million???

The inauguration hypocrisy just does not end. As I wrote yesterday, the tab was estimated to be $150 million. Silly me. One day later: $170 million. How much is anyone betting that we break $200 million by inauguration time tomorrow??? Is anyone in the MSM touching this with a 10-foot boom microphone? (crickets chirping)

Senator Norm Coleman; Part Deux

Ron Carey over at townhall has an interesting column today regarding the senate election that former comedian (the guy stopped being funny somewhere around 1985) Al Franken is trying to steal. I wrote about this the other day here. Some of the shenanigans have been eye-popping for a state that is said to have the cleanest elections in the nation (not saying much I guess). In any case, Ron writes:

"...in recent days, Franken and his Washington legal team have seemed awfully desperate for a campaign that is trying to convince people they are winning. They have now tried to shove Al Franken onto the Senate floor through three separate venues – only be to be rebuffed and delayed because their effort clearly violates Minnesota law.

...Al Franken’s lead will disappear and Norm Coleman will be declared the winner when the following errors are corrected."

Amongst the list will be familiar items that showed up in my earlier post: double-counted ballots, counted missing ballots, wrongly rejected absentee ballots, newly 'discovered' ballots, etc. Sounds just like the situation in Washington State a few years ago.

Inauguration hypocrisy

Anybody remember the anti-inauguration bandwagon the last presidential election cycle? The media, from East coast to West, wrote article after article deriding Bush for having an expensive inauguration during a time of war? Don't remember? Read here and here (HT: MM). Some excerpts:

"With the war in Iraq steadily claiming American lives and the world in mourning over the tsunami disaster, planners of the 55th presidential inauguration face an awkward challenge: how to throw the traditional four-day celebration without appearing to have too much fun."

"A few critics have called for cancellation of everything but the swearing-in because they find it unseemly to spend $40 million on shrimp, spirits, floats and frivolity while American soldiers must scrape together money for phone cards to call home."

"On the editorial page of Sunday’s Washington Post, Bernard Ries, identified in a different Post column as a former deputy chief administrative law judge of the National Labor Relations Board, objects to the expense of the upcoming inauguration"

"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 "

So what has changed in 4 years? We're still in Iraq and have opened up the war in Afghanistan in recent months (Obama has promised more troops there as President also). Plus, we are in the midst of an economic recession that Obama himself said is the worst since the great depression (never mind that the Carter era recession had far worst unemployment, inflation and interest rates than we have now). So what has changed? Where are these nay-sayers wringing their hands in the media now that we are about to have reportedly the biggest, most expensive, most extravagant inauguration event in United States history? (crickets chirping)

So what has changed in 4 years? Well, 4 years ago it was Bush (in much better economic time by the way). Today it's Obama. That's. About. It.

Read more on this phenomenon from Michelle Malkin: "Where are all the Anti-Inauguration activists now?" Related post by AmericanPrincess. You'll have to read it here because you won't hear a peep about it from the MSM.

UPDATE: More from powerline: No media mudballs this time. The post lists the last half-dozen inaugurations and the MSM's narrative. Quite a patern there! "# 2005. Bush's second inaugural was met with far more hostility, with reporters attacking the $40 million price tag as obscene. "In a time of war and natural disaster, is it time for a lavish celebration?" ABC's Terry Moran doubted. The AP's Will Lester calculated that the money spent on Bush's inaugural could vaccinate "22 million children in regions devastated by the tsunami....Do we need to spend this money on what seems so extravagant?" (Obama's inaugural will cost $45 million.)

The day before Bush's swearing-in, ABC's Web site pleaded for tips of "any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20." Sure enough, then-ABC anchor Peter Jennings got his wish to report how "just about the time the president was speaking, there was a funeral for a young Marine reservist: 21-year-old Matthew Holloway was killed in Iraq last week by a roadside bomb." Don't look for the networks to use such tactics to sour Obama's celebration. "

Ouch!

Professor of law Michael Stokes Paulsen at the U. of St. Thomas: "The Minnesota Recount Was Unconstitutional "

The Minnesota Recount Was Unconstitutional (via powerline): "You would think people would learn. The recount in the contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken for a seat in the U.S. Senate isn't just embarrassing. It is unconstitutional."

"Consider the inconsistencies: One county "found" 100 new votes for Mr. Franken, due to an asserted clerical error. Decision? Add them. Ramsey County (St. Paul) ended up with 177 more votes than were recorded election day. Decision? Count them. Hennepin County (Minneapolis, where I voted -- once, to my knowledge) came up with 133 fewer votes than were recorded by the machines. Decision? Go with the machines' tally. All told, the recount in 25 precincts ended up producing more votes than voters who signed in that day."

This looks really bad. Sure is funny how every decision seems to benefit only one candidate, isn't it? Shades of Washington state a few years ago...