No one knows what Obama's inauguration is going to cost until the books are settled. The article, such as it is, is not an exploration of facts but a rant about how awful those darn conservatives are. I agree that if we are going to make comparisons, we need to compare the same things. I'll wait for some enterprising reporter to dig up the actual costs for this event next year, then we can see what the numbers look like.
Furthermore, the shtick from MediaMatters ignores the obvious - that comparisons are being made between the 2005 costs and the current costs because Democrats complained so much about the 2005 costs - the nation is at war, it's unseemly, etc. The nation is still at war, and we are in the middle of a recession to boot, so it is only natural that people will draw comparisons between the costs of the two events. And lastly, I'm not one for ceremony, but lots of people live for this kind of stuff, so if we spend a little cash on the inauguration festivities, so be it. On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Judah M wrote: > The real reason why it costs so much more? Surprise! It..err...doesn't > actually cost much more. Probably just inflation really. > > http://mediamatters.org/columns/200901170003?f=h_top > > Turns out that it is a wonderful media case of apples vs oranges. The > numbers being cited for Bush are about 42 million and for Obama as > being about 160 million. Except for the fact that Bush's numbers don't > include security costs and the numbers quoted for Obama do. > > The cost for Obama's inauguration without security (to enable a direct > comparison with Bush's second inauguration)? 45 million. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:285466 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
