If you have to be a partisan hack to say there’s a difference between an inauguration that’s expensive and attended by 400,000 and an inauguration that’s only slightly more expensive because it is provinding basic amenities to 2 million people and security to a president-elect people keep threatening to shoot, then I guess I’m a partisan hack, too.

The people I know who were there have said that they really wish there had been MORE security and MORE bathrooms as there were soviet-level lines at both. But hey, I guess that would have gotten Obama even more criticism as a spendthrift.

Radley isn’t criticizing Obama at all. He’s calling out a partisan hacks who ginned up a ton of righteous outrage when Bush held an extravagant, expensive inauguration, but can’t seem to bring themselves to criticize The One when his is even more extravagant and expensive.

People decide to come to town and DC has to provide security and bathrooms for them or really bad things happen. It’s just that simple.

I’m taking a couple to dinner tonight who drove up from Florida, had tickets and were still turned away because they literally couldn’t fit any more people on the mall. I’ve lived in DC almost my entire life and I don’t remember any other event where that was the case. But I don’t see how that’s Obama’s fault exactly or why he’s being criticized for it.

how can it not? With more people, you need more resources. If you order the same number of port-o-potties for million people as you do for a 100,000 things will get messy.

Uhm, why not? You don’t think the cost of providing security for an event scales with the number of people attending?

Still my main point was I don’t think the number of actual attendees should factor in as a justification as to its cost. For public funds it is the same 150 million people who get stuck with the bill in either case.

So long as the inauguration remains a public event, I’d say the government is obligated to provide for the security of the President and the attendees.

I think the per capita costs need to come from who is footing the bill (every taxpayer). In that case it is the same for both inagurations.

That said I do agree that there is a difference between a first and second inaguration. And I imagine security is a lot heavier now as compared to Bush’s first (pre-9/11). Although I’m not sure the extra security is justified or even effective.

A quick google shows around 300k people attending Bush’s 05 inauguration vs. estimates of 1-5 million for Obama’s.

As for Boehlert–yes, he’s criticizing Obama’s critics. Because they’re wrong. And because they’re essentially lying. That he hasn’t criticized Obama doesn’t change that fact. Granted, I’m biased here, but I would say that having major media outlets mislead people about the costs of the respective inaugurations is more troubling than the sort of predictable partisan switchbacks of which you accuse Boehlert and co.

I mean, I get the point you’re making, but c’mon. Obama is spending about the same as Bush did, even though Obama’s inauguration is expected to draw at least 3 times as many people as Bush’s and carries at least the same risk of a terrorist attack. Yet it’s being reported that Obama is spending $100 million more than Bush. And your problem is with the guy who is setting the record straight?

Not Obama; the nation.

And no, that was not a remark about slavery.

You’re not serious, right? Liberals routinely support troops; our current conservative cadre supports wars, troops be damned.