D.C. Getting Burned for Bush's Party

This is ridiculous. As Jon Stewart asked last night on The Daily Show (thank you, TiVo!), maybe this has something to do with D.C. voting 9 to 1 for Kerry.

Let's see if I've got this straight: The Bush White House is planning to hold the most expensive presidential inauguration in U.S. history, in the midst of a war in Iraq and in the aftermath of a disaster that has the world in mourning, and the administration wants the District to help pay for the spectacle -- by diverting federal money from the city's homeland security budget, no less.

Surely, the Bush administration couldn't be that thoughtless. Could it?

"This administration is trying, belatedly, to tighten its financial belt," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), told me yesterday. "Having spent the country into a dangerous deficit through tax cuts for the wealthy and the invasion of another country, they're trying to pinch pennies wherever they can."

Just four years ago, this same George W. Bush managed to pay for his inauguration without picking the District's pocket, just as every other newly elected president had done for 200 years. Then again, that was before the nation's $2 trillion surplus disappeared.

The Bush administration even agreed to give the city $15 million a year for an emergency fund to help defray expenses associated with security alerts and national demonstrations. That was thoughtful.

Tell it, Courtland.