Inaugural Hell

The Daily Beast ^ | 1/4/09 | Lyric Winik

[browardchad]

Scott Andrews / AP

Message to you out-of-towners heading to Washington, D.C. for your first presidential inauguration: You will be miserable.

January 20 is shaping up to be the inauguration celebration of our lifetimes. Which is fitting, because there’s a dirty little secret about Washington, D.C., and the inaugural balls: if you’ve ever been to one, you’ll never go back.

Inaugurals are a miserable experience. This will come as sad news to the Obamaphiles who forked over checks for $50,000 to be granted the title of “finance chair” for the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC). It will probably be even sadder news to those who opted for the $300,000 package, which gives them four tickets to all official inaugural events. Except if you read the not-so-fine print: that $300,000 doesn’t include any tickets to the actual inauguration itself.

>>snip<<

So, what exactly does one get for $50,000? Your contribution entitles you to a late night event on Saturday, January 17, a welcome brunch with an unnamed special guest on the following day, unspecified welcoming events, evening events, a thank-you dinner, a breakfast meeting on Martin Luther King Day, and various bi-partisan dinners. ... And according to the initial inauguration invites, as a bonus, your $50,000 donation also entitles you to be shaken down further for Hillary Clinton’s “debt relief” and “the Al Franken Recount Fund.”

>>snip<<

“The official balls are basically like bad proms,” says the wife of one well-connected congressman.

 

[unkus]

The Pick Pockets-don’t forget the Pick Pockets!!

[King Moonracer]

The Pick Pockets-don’t forget the Pick Pockets!!

They're all in congress now.

[null and void]

It is to laugh...

[unkus]

“It is to laugh...”

I love this. It’s going to be as miserable as a flea infested dog.

[browardchad]

The Pick Pockets-don’t forget the Pick Pockets!!

Another highlight of the festivities, to be sure.

[LibFreeOrDie]

Amtrak Boosts Service From Boston For Inauguration

(Airlines, too.)

http://wbztv.com/local/amtrak.inuguration.day.2.899596.html

Travel in the NE Corridor will be hell that day.

[capydick]

“The official balls are basically like bad proms,”

Probably true - but - the Freeper Balls were a great time!

[browardchad]

Travel in the NE Corridor will be hell that day.

Hell seems to be the operative word for this event.

But here's the, ahem, brighter side:

Oprah is supposedly planning a party, and the Screen Actors Guild is hosting a dinner, presumably for Hollywood’s A-list. The Environmental and Clean Energy Ball, to be held at the Sequoia Restaurant in Georgetown on inauguration night, has already scored a major coup; it sold out in one day and boasts that it will be hosting almost president Al Gore, who’s also planning his own ball. Ticket holders have also been told that the Obamas, big fans of clean energy and green jobs, are “expected to drop by.” Biden and his wife Jill may even take a page from Dick and Lynne Cheney’s book and host a small post-inaugural party later in the week for friends and supporters inside a large heated tent on the grounds of the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory, while camouflaged security teams with painted faces roam about outside through the bucolic trees and bushes.

Oprah, the Hollywood A-list, The Environmental and Clean Energy Ball featuring Al Gore, Joe Biden in a tent, and security teams trying to look like trees. What fun!

[LiberConservative]

It's going to be a Sodom and Gomorrah freak show.

[browardchad]

Probably true - but - the Freeper Balls were a great time!

I'm sure they were, and here's to better times, after the much-less-than-good times!

[vetvetdoug]

For Reagan's second inaugural, I had to wear a Civil War Period Union cavalry uniform for the Parade. Several of the balls invited us a couple of nights before (if we wore the uniforms) and we went to several. I don't know how many we made because my memory only allows me to remember the first two. I had a grand time. We didn't get to ride in the parade because it was cancelled as the wind chill was somewhere between -5 degrees and -20 degrees Fahrenheit.

[boomop1]

I thought the Freeper Ball was pretty good, especially Honorable Cong BillyBob, it is a lot easier if you live close.

[mware]

I wonder how many people know that a middle school band of gays and lesbians have been invited to march in the parade?

[mware]

President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden have officially invited the Lesbian and Gay Band Association to march in the Inaugural Parade. One of the association’s web sites reports that the group will also march in September as part of the homosexual “Southern Decadence” festival infamous for its public lewd acts.

The Lesbian and Gay Band Association (LGBA) is a network of lesbian and gay bands comprised of concert and marching bands from various American cities.

According to a December 10 press release from the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the group’s appearance in the Inaugural Parade on January 20 will mark the first time an “openly LGBT group” has been invited to participate

[ozaukeemom]

We all know what happened to them.

[freekitty]

I bet they get a lot of phone calls on that one. You don’t even go to the inaugural for 300,000 grand. LOL Talk about fleece. These idiots are sitting ducks.

How pathetic is this?

[Riley]

I had to commute through DC on the Metro during the last inauguration. I didn’t want to attend it, even though it was an ‘our side’ crowd. It was just too many doggone people. If I were still commuting through DC, I’d take the day off. I’ve been through some heavy crowds on the Metro, but this one is going to be worse than the Fourth of July post-fireworks crush of people.

Thankfully, I won’t be any closer than Fairfax.

[browardchad]

According to a December 10 press release from the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the group’s appearance in the Inaugural Parade on January 20 will mark the first time an “openly LGBT group” has been invited to participate.

How special. That should go over well with Obama voters who also voted for Prop 8 and similar resolutions in other states. But then, I guess he can always blame it on Biden? 

[Riley]

Or through some amazing convoluted miasma of Leftist pretzel-logic, Bush.