The Endless Inauguration

By Alan Caruba

I am the last person you want to invite to a party. I am almost always the first to leave. There’s something about a whole bunch of people getting together to celebrate anything that doesn’t work for me.

I am one of those who far prefer a small group of people, perhaps no more than three couples, who can exchange their thoughts and points of view without having to shout over loud music or, worse, to pretend to be happy if they’re not.

That’s why I am already “partied-out” with the inauguration, not because it isn’t a historic occasion, but because it already seems to have gone on for too long when, in fact, it will not officially and formally occur until Tuesday.

It may have something to do, for example, with the fact that Time Magazine has put a portrait of President-elect Obama on its cover thirteen times in the passed year. That’s just stupid.

I can live with the fact that my political party’s candidate lost. I wasn’t that thrilled with him to begin with and, apparently, neither were several million Republicans who simply stayed home on Election Day. I am not one of those people who think that the nation is in great peril just because the other guy won.

I do think that many of the policies that will carried out in the next four years by the Obama administration will illustrate once again why liberals should never been allowed to be in charge. To be fair, however, the last eight years of Republicans turned out to be a nearly complete renunciation of the party’s principles. Let’s face it, they deserved to lose.

To return to my complaint of the day—if I am not cranky, you need to check my pulse—all the media coverage of every single aspect leading up to the event seems to demonstrate just how much those about to acquire power can lead this adoring media around to ensure hour upon hour of vapid reporting.

Monday will be no better and, of course, Tuesday will encompass the actual event, plus the parade, plus the many gala balls, plus whatever else is deemed momentous.

Only in America, a nation already engulfed by one of the worst financial situations in modern times, could we witness millions spent on an inaugural celebration and its attendant events.

I would have preferred a more subdued atmosphere, minus the theatrics of a train ride from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., with a stop at Wilmington to pick up the Vice President-elect. The incoming President seems to need huge crowds on a daily basis and I am sure will love hearing “Hail to the Chief” everywhere he goes.

I will, of course, watch the actual inaugural ceremonies. There are moments in the nation’s history that must not be ignored. In 1963 I watched Dr. Martin Luther King deliver his “I have a dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I wish he could have been here for this inauguration.

Somehow, for all the criticism raised against America, we seem always able to utterly confound our critics and our enemies. That’s something worth celebrating.