Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

This morning I took a vacation day, so I went in to Lago’s show rather than calling in. One of the topics was sacrifice during a time of war, and how the American people were asked to sacrifice during WW II. Jim also asked if I had ever read Bull Moose. Yes, I have. But not in some time. Jim had a link today, and I went to see about the topic at hand.

The issue is whether there should be grand Inaugural Balls and parties as there is each election. The folks at Bull Moose (The Democratic Leadership Council) believe not:

Official partying is entirely inappropriate while our brave troops are sacrificing life and limb for country.

I tend to agree. But I doubt any parties in Chevy Chase or Georgetown have been cancelled recently.

More than two months before Bill Clinton’s second inauguation, I was in DC. I had gone to see Slice graduate from the Marine Officer Training Course at Quantico, and took my wife for her first visit to what is one of my favorite cities. Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit the Capitol because of all the construction going on in preparation for the inauguration. I was inconvenienced and unable to visit my seat of government so that a single day’s activities could take place in expensive grandeur some time in the relatively distant future.

The cost estimate for this inauguration will be high, too (about $40 million). And that is the real issue. If the RNC picks up the tab, I have no complaint. But taxpayers should be spared. I’m sure that’s not the reason the DLC has in mind.

And in their “About” section, they recall my favorite President, Theodore Roosevelt (the original Bull Moose), and one of his best quotes:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Do you think the Democratic Leadership Council feels that way about Dubya? Not if you listen to what they say about Iraq.