by Linda Gehring

Created on: January 24, 2009

Reading this week of all the hoopla and gala events planned in Washington for the Obama inauguration, and with our country now on the precipe of an economic depression, also with an ongoing engagement for which there still appears no end (since the Bush accord recently signed with the Iraqi parliment calls for a three year plan for troop withdrawal, and Obama has made noise now about Pakistan and India), the delusion of the American people to most of us who have ascertained that this new Administration will most likely be another Federal Reserve/Council of Foreign Relations exercise in formenting the global world government they seek with simply a "change" in mouthpieces has been simply too incredible to believe.

It appears that the events as planned, the cost of which also will be billed to the federal deficit and American taxpayers in the guise of the "Inaugural Committee," will be the most expensive inauguration ever undertaken, and with all the trappings of a Hollywood premiere. Even Arianna Huffington is having her own little soiree, as is Oprah Winfrey. This event is a far cry from the inaugurations of those first presidents, and their solemn occasions and dignity that was inherent in both the position, and the costs as public funds. Mr. Obama, it is clear, enjoys the celebrity lifestyle and all the trappings since his candidacy has been likened to the Kennedy era, of course with that Administrations over the top excesses and Hollywood connections also now historically documented. Politics and Hollywood have made strange bedfellows since that era, although had been put under wraps until this latest election cycle and study in excess.

As a citizen now who is suffering economically from both the housing crisis, and who has been opposed to this war since the invasion of Iraq and abandonment of the original mission, I find it rather offensive that while those men and women are serving in Iraq, some of whom were woefully misled upon their enlistment and now serving their second and third tours of duties, Obama will be boogeying with the likes of Rhianna. While the costs daily continue to mount, even on Inauguration Day. No word in Obama's economic plans at this point in transferring the costs of the war to the Iraqi government, which is in the black while we are deeply in the red. The presidency is a position of service, not celebrity, and should be accorded the same ceremonial simplicity as such, and not a coronation.

Give me the good old days of our first hundred years. A solemn ceremony from the White House balcony with Mr. Obama swearing his oath and fidelity to "defend, protect and uphold the Constitution of these United States," and a leader whose ego understands that as a representative of the people, such an exercise in excess in light of the ongoing war and economic crisis this country is now facing could be seen as quite offensive, and that the ceremony should match the circumstances of those he is bound to serve and protect. Not the Hollywood elite.

In other words, give me a another humble Jefferson or Lincoln, not an elitist Kennedy or George H.W. Bush. Campaigning in Germany and Europe and now this. Happy days are here again. Or are they?

I hope this isn't a replay of Rome and Nero.

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