Forget Iraq and South Asia, It's Party Time
Jeanne Phillips, chairwoman of the 55th Presidential Inaugural Committee, was asked in a recent interview if the $40 million being spent on the festivities might be better spent on the troops in Iraq. No, not really. She and the president instead decided to dedicate the festivities to "honoring service" and throwing, for the first time, a Commander in Chief Ball to which 2,000 servicemen have been invited. That, of course, leaves out the 140,000 troops stationed in Iraq, and countless others around the world. Just how do these events benefit the troops? "I'm not sure that they do," she admitted, but she quickly repeated that "honoring service is what our theme is about."
Let the troops eat a theme. Members of the 101st Airborne Division will no doubt be pleased to learn that partygoers at nine ballrooms will be honoring them. Surely that soldier who asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about a lack of armor won't feel so bad about his unfortified vehicle if 2,000 servicemen are eating canapes in his name, and arms merchants are dancing till dawn in honor of arms-bearers in Mosul.
What's surprising is that the down-to-earth president doesn't get that the world has changed since his extravaganza in 2001. The master of identifying with the common man has blown such an easy opportunity to reinforce the image he's so ardently cultivated, an image that just won him reelection despite four years of policies undertaken on behalf of the uncommon man. It's a mask he must maintain if he's to make tax cuts permanent, dismantle Social Security and pursue an ownership society for the benefit of the people who already own it -- without the rest of the country catching on.
Naming the inaugural ball "Patriotic" doesn't make it so. That's especially true now that the war is overlaid with massive human suffering and deprivation in South Asia. If you were looking for the opposite of planting a victory garden, you couldn't do better than to have sitcom star Kelsey Grammer emcee the military ball. If you want to laugh at human suffering then go trip the light fantastic at the Liberty Ball. (Visiting the black hole of devastation in Sumatra, Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "I've never seen anything like it." Of course, nothing Powell says will change anything. Powell's involvement in an issue is confirmation that the president doesn't care about it.)
