Covering the inauguration

My main responsibility -- and it is the new age of responsibility, after all -- was to the people who cut my paycheck today, so I will direct you to the Register's Orange Punch blog for ruminations on what was, especially following the build-up, a rather flat inauguration ceremony. Here's today's Register editorial anticipating the inauguration. I also found a blog by Will Wilkinson, who edits Cato's at-liberty blog, who live-blogged the ceremony with a nice sardonic edge. Also David Boaz's dissenting prelude.

Inauguration overload already

Is it just me, or is there even more hype for the presidential inauguration than usual this year. Of course the fact that Obama is the one has something to do with it, but the imperial presidency has been building for a long time, with most presidents reaching out for just a bit more unaccountable power whenever they have the chance. And the news media support the build-up, supporting, even when they do a segment on how there may be just too many challenges, the implicit notion that presidents are somehow close to superhuman.

I heard one caster say Obama represents the best of all of us today. Sheeeesh!! He's been the most successful climper of the slippery pole of power in a notably disreputable trade, politics. To see politicians rather than scientists, artists, writers, inventors or entrepreneurs as representing the best of us represents a profoundly twisted and unhealthy view of reality. It was bad enough to identify a pop singer as the American Idol.

Here's the piece I did for the Register's Sunday Commentary section on the challenges Obama will face. It would be a healthier country if all a president had to do was administer the executive branch and see to it that the laws are faithfully executed instead of being the First Inspirer, theb First Teacher and the First Buddy.