About the $150,000,000 inauguration:
01.11.05
REP. WEINER’S LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT ASKING THAT INAUGURAL FUNDS BE USED FOR THE TROOPS
Mr. President Elect
Dear Mr. President:
The festivities surrounding your inauguration later this month are slated to cost $150 million – making this the most expensive inauguration in history. I urge you to re-direct those funds towards a use more fitting to these sober times – bonuses or equipment for our troops.
Precedent suggests that inaugural festivities should be muted – if not cancelled – in wartime. In the midst of World War II, President Roosevelt held his 1945 inaugural at the White House, making a short speech and serving guests cold chicken salad and plain pound cake. During World War I, President Wilson did not have any parties at his 1917 inaugural, saying that such festivities would be undignified.
Furthermore, $150 million could provide substantial support for our troops overseas. For example, we could buy armor for 2400 unarmored humvees or provide a $1000 bonus for each member of the armed services station in Iraq.
Please re-direct all the funds raised for the inauguration to our brave men and women in uniform.
NOTE: The preceding letter to the President was to G.W. Bush before his 2005 inauguration. Blue print indicates where I have changed words and figures to bring things up to date.
Cheers to Michelle Malkin who posted this letter on her own site.
UPDATE!! A related story from Newsbusters.
You know, I just read an Op-Ed from Rosa Parks at the L.A. Times who said that Barry-O will not give any ammunition to late-night talk show hosts. I disagree.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
13 comments:
Your First Amendment right to free speech is a privilege and comes with a measure of responsibility. You have the right to exercise that responsibility here but we reserve the right to inform you when you've used that right irresponsibly.
We are benevolent dictators in this regard. Enjoy.
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This $150 million is going toward
ReplyDelete- protecting the troops better
- utilizing our military with far more excellent judgment
- positioning them for success without profligate blood sacrifice
- bringing them home from the killing deserts that accomplished so little so slowly
- and, upon discharge, providing a humane, caring, equipped VA for any medical needs they may have.
Among many other things. Good money spent.
No, Feodor, it's going to port-o-potties, champagne, hors d'oeuvres, entertainment, and wait-staff.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the cost to the War On Weather!
ReplyDeleteLeave it to a leftist idiot like Feodora to justify his own obvious hypocrisy while clarifying it at the same time.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem with America these days...no shame.
Every time a Republican in Congress whines about the troops, a kitten dies.
ReplyDeleteIf these people really cared about the troops, they never would have sent them to war in this instance, unprepared, without proper body armor, undermanned, without preparing their vehicles, or retrofitting them, without training for occupation duty, then turned around and treated them like dirt in VA hospitals, denied requests for mental health support for PTSD, depression, and its side effects, etc. This is grandstanding and means nothing.
As soon as I hear about a Congressional Republican outraged by the way the troops are actually being treated, I'll publish his name. Until then, not so much.
We are all just beginning to realize the cost of mopping up from a failed Presidency.
ReplyDeleteCelebrating escape to hope and taking a new, big breath of preparation are the first steps of turning around the spirit and willingness of a democracy that consists in will of the people.
Celebration sets the stage for recouping their trust and renewing the energy of a nation.
Money well spent.
Comparing this war to WWII is a favorite of conservatives, most of whose ideological ancestors hated everything about FDR, including "his" war. There are no comparisons, because the entire country was on a war fitting in 1944-1945; our industry only made things for the war; our workers only made things for the war. There was a draft. There were wage and price controls. There was rationing of consumer goods and materials that were primarily meant for the war. There were confiscatory taxes.
ReplyDeleteNone of that is going on. If any Republican has ever requested a tax hike in the past seven years to pay for the grand misadventure in Iraq, or its human toll on our troops, I want to see his name, shake his or her hand, and offer him or her a place in the Hall of Fame.
Feodor is right. A little party right now, for an incoming President more popular than many in previous years, is a good thing. We need a little celebration.
Seems the usual suspects are quick with the silly arguments.
ReplyDeleteFeodor,
What makes you think any of what you listed in your first will come to pass? You're guessing at best. The dude's already waffling on his plans for fighting terror.
And comments regarding a "failed" presidency is mere BDS talk, as true grading of a presidency's success only comes after time has passed an objective critique has occurred. Recall Truman's sub-30s approval rating upon his departure. He's graded far better by historians now.
In addition, by not signing the pathetically idiotic Kyoto Agreement, by appointing both Roberts and Alito, by actually having a pair to do something tangible in the fight against terrorism, the very act of which prevented a 9/11 replay, I'd wager few respectable historians will view GW Bush as a "failed" president.
Geoffrey,
Every time a lib blogger suggests he knows the motivations of any conservative, a kitten coughs up a furball.
You sit back from the comfort of your bean-bag chair and suppose your preferred Dem leaders would fare better in times of war. So far, there's nothing to suggest that's the case with today's crop of lefty misfits. The way our troops cut through the Taliban and Iraqi Republican Guards in the initial invasions shows just how prepared they were. From that point on, as in every war ever fought, the unexpected occurred. On top of that, like with everything else, you use anecdotal episodes to use as evidence of overall policy failures. This very lefty ploy is one of the most heinous examples of disregard for the troops, for it is meant to denegrate the CIC and is the very type of grandstanding you claim to abhor.
And how do you know which Congressional Republicans do what for the troops? Do they ring you up personally? How much time do you spend reviewing the bills, proposals and votes of each and every Republican member of Congress?
There are plenty of parallels between this war and WWII with the most obvious being the world dominating attitude of the enemies of each. Where it differs most is in the resolve and perception of the American people. There was no View Nam before WWII that distorted and corrupted the manner in which patriotism and love of country, not to mention righteousness, manifested in the hearts of Americans at that time. It was easy to see, even with the limited media coverage available to the average citizen, just what we were up against and what inaction would mean for the world. And there was no level of FDR-derangement syndrome that prevented his opponents from soon appreciating the gravity of the situation. That's why a draft and all the other sacrifices were possible at that time. Their dislike for Frankie didn't cover their view of the realities of the situation at hand. Oh, were that so now. It's a symptom of American Descent that it isn't.
First of all, I am not claiming to know anyone's motivation for anything. I am repeating the historical record. The Republican Party led the government when we started the war in Iraq. They continued to control it even as evidence came to light that they were doing less than was necessary to care for our troops, in combat and afterward. I do not wonder why they did this. I only repeat that it was, in fact, done.
ReplyDeleteNow, it might be possible that the person who wrote this letter to Pres.-elect Obama did so out of a genuine concern for American troops. Wonderful. Yet, seeing as there has yet to be any serious acceptance of responsibility on the part of any Republican for the complete FUBAR of our military, our veteran medical care system, and our standing in the world, I think withholding the benefit of the doubt is something that should be less than shocking.
Let's just back up a minute here and get level set. The $150M cost is completely undocumented. It's made up, purely and simply. You can't show one source that documents any cost other than the approximately $45M cost excluding security, which is comparable to the Bush 2005 inaugural cost of $42M excluding security.
ReplyDeleteAs far as anyone can say, the cost is $400M for all the documentation you have. This whole thing is bogus!!
Bush will always be competing with Buchanan and Hoover as worst Presidents in American History.
ReplyDeleteThe bottom three.
He's no Truman, Senator. Historians are now fully familiar with how history sees Presidents. And there is so little unknown anymore today in what Presidents do.
BUSHED:
- Flew over a ruined American city; as he leaves he regrets not landing (not landing!?)
- Loyal to his AG who ruined the federal department of Justice.
- Wasted four thousand American lives and a hundred thousand Iraqi lives in faltering and underwhelming strategy of nation building but forgot to build a nation. Only after one man, really.
- Wasted more American lives in an Afghan war his attention span would not let him spend more than five months focused on. Only after regime destruction, really. Forgot the rest.
- Let Russia boil into a aggressor.
- Pushed Palestine into a failed state that has been and will be a problem for years.
- Ignored genocide in Sudan.
- Ignored Zimbabwe.
- Ignored New Orleans.
- Presided over an Interior Department that dissipated into drugs and sex for years.
Says the burden of the office are overrated. Given his level of engagement in the work, I am sure he is right.
"He's no Truman, Senator. Historians are now fully familiar with how history sees Presidents. And there is so little unknown anymore today in what Presidents do."
ReplyDeleteYou obviously haven't spent time with David McCullough's thousand page tome on Truman. They know plenty what he did then as well.
What followed the above quote is your own biased view and not likely equal to objective observations of historians in only a few decades from now.
Well, I wont deny that historians, generally being quite educated and very liberal, are a forgiving group.
ReplyDeleteBut Truman didn't collude with Mother Nature in the destruction of an American city, four federal departments, the worst economic performance since the Depression, and lost all of Congress for his party.