Inaugural Hell

The Daily Beast ^ | 1/4/09 | Lyric Winik

[browardchad]

Scott Andrews / AP

Message to you out-of-towners heading to Washington, D.C. for your first presidential inauguration: You will be miserable.

January 20 is shaping up to be the inauguration celebration of our lifetimes. Which is fitting, because there’s a dirty little secret about Washington, D.C., and the inaugural balls: if you’ve ever been to one, you’ll never go back.

Inaugurals are a miserable experience. This will come as sad news to the Obamaphiles who forked over checks for $50,000 to be granted the title of “finance chair” for the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC). It will probably be even sadder news to those who opted for the $300,000 package, which gives them four tickets to all official inaugural events. Except if you read the not-so-fine print: that $300,000 doesn’t include any tickets to the actual inauguration itself.

>>snip<<

So, what exactly does one get for $50,000? Your contribution entitles you to a late night event on Saturday, January 17, a welcome brunch with an unnamed special guest on the following day, unspecified welcoming events, evening events, a thank-you dinner, a breakfast meeting on Martin Luther King Day, and various bi-partisan dinners. ... And according to the initial inauguration invites, as a bonus, your $50,000 donation also entitles you to be shaken down further for Hillary Clinton’s “debt relief” and “the Al Franken Recount Fund.”

>>snip<<

“The official balls are basically like bad proms,” says the wife of one well-connected congressman.

 

[browardchad]

For Reagan's second inaugural, I had to wear a Civil War Period Union cavalry uniform for the Parade.

Those were the days...

[rabidralph]

Inauguration Day is usually a pretty miserable day, weather-wise.

[cubreporter]

We will be too busy enjoying our family, our home, the birds singing, the blue skies and the sunshine to even care. Our TV will not be turned on so we won’t be wasting electricity on something so silly.

[browardchad]

You don’t even go to the inaugural for 300,000 grand. LOL Talk about fleece. These idiots are sitting ducks.

It almost (but not quite) makes you want to feel sorry for the hope and change crowd:

Those tickets are free, but “controlled” by Congress; “be in touch with your Congressperson or Senator,” the Obama people suggest. By now though, it’s too late; many Congressional offices have even raffled off their spots. (Say what you will about the Bushies, but back in 2005, when a lot more people liked them, they gave out a bunch of VIP seated inaugural tickets for free with your ball tickets, which went for a mere $500 a pop). Thus, those big donors wanting to see Obama put his hand on the Lincoln Bible are advised by PIC solicitors to consider doing so as “walk-ins.” As a Presidential Inauguration Committee representative put it, “President Obama chose to put the administration together with more urgency than the Inauguration.”

Pay-to-play, anyone?

[EDINVA]

“According to a December 10 press release from the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the group’s appearance in the Inaugural Parade on January 20 will mark the first time an “openly LGBT group” has been invited to participate”

Isn’t that SPECIAL !!!!

Happy New Year, M

Coming for NCPAC this year?

[mware]

Hi Ed. I hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Even though I despised what I fear our nation is in store for, I had considered showing portions of the Inaugural and Parade to my students.

No way I am even considering showing them any part of the parade given that groups invitation.

[Palladin]

Add to that a bunch of terrorist cells pissed off about Israel’s invasion of the Gaza. Oh, what fun! Better than Fourth of July in Kalamazoo.

[mombonn]

The FReeper Ball in 2001 was the greatest! I don’t think anyone was disappointed, and it sure didn’t include a shake-down.

[browardchad]

We will be too busy enjoying our family, our home, the birds singing, the blue skies and the sunshine to even care. Our TV will not be turned on so we won’t be wasting electricity on something so silly.

A good approach.

[freekitty]

Here’s a good one to explain the kind of people we are dealing with today.

http://olimu.com/Journalism/Texts/Commentary/NewClass.htm

[browardchad]

The FReeper Ball in 2001 was the greatest! I don’t think anyone was disappointed, and it sure didn’t include a shake-down.

I remember reading about it, just as you describe. We celebrated vicariously, after having stood in the sun and rain, chanting, down here, in the recount demonstrations.  It seems like so long ago...but eight months after the inauguration, it took on a whole new importance.

[mombonn]

I still have the sweatshirt I bought. Will be wearing it this January 20th in my silent, inauguration-free zone.

I must say, I'd be a shrieking banshee if hillary! was being sworn in. Obambi's inauguration will be one of quiet desperation.

[mombonn]

p.s. - the only downside of the 2001 inauguration was that clintbilly refused to leave the stage.

The lack of respect he showed President Bush and all of us was disgusting.

[browardchad]

p.s. - the only downside of the 2001 inauguration was that clintbilly refused to leave the stage.

The lack of respect he showed President Bush and all of us was disgusting.

The endless ceremony in the airplane hanger -- disgusting  is a good adjective.

I know we'll see a much more dignified leave-taking this time -- by a President who, in spite of his faults, upheld the dignity of the office.

[unkus]

Same here.

[browardchad]

Thank you, Derb had it right, eight years ago. We need only substitute Obama for Gore, and "New Class" for "transnational progressives" or, if you will, since they are emboldened, "socialists." --

Today's elite loathes the nation it rules.

The New Class has deep differences of opinion with the common people and therefore cannot get elected without a certain amount of deceit....

Thus New Class candidates for power must make a show of piety. At critical points in his various personal dramas, President Clinton has taken care to be seen coming out of church clutching a bible...

The lesson of the Clinton-Gore candidacies may ultimately be the one taught by another national leader in another time: If you're going to lie, lie big....

Hence the endless sappy litany of New Class politicians and media types: We CARE, we're for the people, for the kiddies and the old folk, for the environment—the birds and little fishes. And you? Why, you just want to strip the country bare and trample on the faces of the poor, to enrich yourselves and your friends and gratify your base appetities for worldly goods....

They are ... Wait a minute. What's that? I'm out of space? But I've only just been clearing my throat! They are bullies! They are cowards! They are snobs! They are narcissists! They are shallow! They are obscurantist! They are racist! They are sentimental! They are fiscally irresponsible! They hate the nation-state! They hate religion! They hate democracy! They hate science!

...our nation and our liberties are under assault by an arrogant, self-satisfied elite of over-educated libertines. Al Gore, though not exactly of them, carries their standard into battle, and will finalize their capture of our institutions.

It is not just for particular matters of policy that we should oppose the Gore candidacy, nor for any personal failings we may have detected in the man, but for the final, decisive triumph of the New Class that will follow a Gore victory. Class-warfare politics? Oh yes, please!

[freekitty]

This is exactly what it is. We are being ruled by a bunch of low rent liars.

[PghBaldy]

I voted for the guy and was turned off by Gore’s tearing the country apart. Then, Clinton with his rally at an airport hangar, IIRC. Bad form, and it has NOTHING to do with money or status or heritage.

[browardchad]

I still have the sweatshirt I bought.

I made some t-shirts for our group  -- a graphic of Gore in a staight jacket, and the words, IIRC, "Don't make me come down there, Al --- God."

Unfortunately, t-shirts don't survive as well as sweatshirts (although I suspect that at least one of the group still has this one squirreled away).

Wear it proudly.

[PLMerite]

“Thankfully, I won’t be any closer than Fairfax.”

If they’re still expecting 4 million people and 10,000 buses, even Fairfax might be too close.

I’m near Greenbelt in MD and I’m not planning on even trying to go to work that day. I need a couple days off anyway.