Other Crap

Fox News gets a little surprise in an interview that was supposed to be a puff piece. "It's a universal rule - the worse a war is going, the more lavish the inauguration to cover it up". You can debate whether the USA is currently at war, but even if you accept that, I don't think her point is true. In the past half century, there have been two wars that were going poorly for the USA, and the President responsible simply didn't get another inauguration, plain or fancy. Truman had already served seven years, and LBJ basically resigned in disgrace by voluntarily forgoing another term. The interviewee's point is based entirely on FDR's inauguration in 1944. FDR chose to have a modest inauguration so as not to seem frivolous in what was a very frightening time for a devastated world. I agree with what FDR did, but I'm not sure it has any application to GWB. If the American people felt the war was going THAT badly, they would have sent him back to Texas with his tail between his legs, as they did to LBJ. Right or wrong, they did not.