I had the opportunity to watch a bit of the live television coverage of the Presidential Inauguration today. A few quick takes:
Loved the limo. Loved Laura resplendent in Oscar De La Renta. Loved watching W play the daddy signaling to Jenna that film crews were broadcasting her applying lip gloss to a nation hungry for a human moment. Let's face it: in the wide shots it wasn't a parade; it was an armed invasion.
Hated the protestors. Not their causes, mind you. Their deportment. What a motley crew! Environmentalists starting trash fires in the "freedom section?" There is something so fundamentally wrong with that picture. Until the Left learns how to be the loyal opposition, red state America will prevail. Every uncivil pixel broadcast nation- and worldwide only stiffens the Right's already well-disciplined spine.
Pundits paralleling 2005 with LBJ's inauguration forty years ago hit it on the head: A second term President presiding over increased majorities in both houses of Congress with messy foreign conflict defining their legacies. Whether the other parallel also holds true (1965 was the zenith for liberalism in the 20th Century vs. 2005 as the zenith for conservatism) is a question yet to be answered.
The answer will likely lie in the one word missing in today's pomp and circumstance: Iraq.
And for the moment it is - like it or not - today is W's day. America spoke, albeit with a divided voice, but the democratic process and the republic prevail. George Bush does polish up "purty darn nice" for a West Texas oil millionaire. How long the shine will last after the balls, however, is anyone's guess.
So for today, Hail to the Chief. After that, let Hell to the Chief begin.
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