One Wonders If They Get Whiplash
Obama Administration 
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Tonight is the final night of the Bush term; tomorrow dawns the Age of Obama. And at the risk of being declared a churlish misanthrope, I have to say that all the inauguration hoopla has grown rather nauseating. One would think that having lived through eight years of what has frequently been criticized as an “imperial presidency”, the electorate would look upon politicians and political theater with a much more jaundiced eye. Yet such are the days that merely uttering the phrase, “Hope and change,” induces grotesque, self-parodying displays of cultish fawning. (I would like to associate myself with Andrew Breitbart’s take on the celebrity vid, by the way.)
I am not a fan of Mr. Obama, but he’s always struck me as an intelligent man. One is tempted to wonder if, privately, he’s not a little creeped out by all this. And if not, please permit me to suggest that we have an aide whispering, “Respica te, hominem te memento,” to him amid this latter-day Roman triumph.
Reason magazine’s Hit & Run blog has debuted a Hackwatch feature to track the pirouetting of pundits based on the party identification of the Current Occupant. This is undoubtedly going to be a target-rich environment in the coming weeks and months; E.J. Dionne and Joe Conason alone will probably keep the Hit & Runners amply busy. Appropos of the inauguration, we have Slate’s Eric Boehlert, whinging about the cost of Bush’s second inauguration in 2005, but excoriating critics of the as-expensive-or-moreso Obama inaugural festivities in 2009 on the grounds that the cost comparisons being thrown around in the media aren’t apples-to-apples. Let’s say that’s true, Mr. Boehlert, and Bush’s 2005 inauguration and Obama’s 2009 inauguration will end up costing roughly the same. Since you were complaining in 2005 that Bush’s inaugural was a garish extravagance, surely Mr. Obama’s deserves about the same condemnation. Right?