Inauguration, Sminauguration...

So everyone seems to be making a big deal of Tuesday's inauguration. I was scheduled to take a career development class that our HR department is sponsoring, but they decided to push it back because they were worried too many people would be taking off for the inauguration.

It's kind of weird, since I'm an anomaly - a registered Republican in a very blue state, who works in higher ed, which tends to be very liberal. The thought of taking off for the inauguration never occurred to me - but then again, the thought of taking days off for any reason has never really occurred to me.

I didn't vote for Obama. I'm not thrilled that he's going to be our next president. I expect that during his term, he will implement a number of the policies he's discussed in his campaign that I think will leave me and a lot of other people a lot worse off - handouts to low-income individuals disguised as tax cuts, card check leading to more unions and an even worse-off manufacturing sector, a heath "insurance" plan that will also become a huge cost center, and a tendency to care more about America's image abroad than it's interests.

Still, it could be worse. His cabinet picks and some of his statements suggest he may be more moderate than his campaign suggested, and he may not be quite as soft on terrorism as I feared.

I'm trying to think if I've watched any other inaugurations, and the only one I remember was Clinton in 1992, and only because my elementary school pulled everyone out of class to watch it. I didn't watch W's in 2001, even though I voted for him. Then again, I was a junior in college at the time, so I was probably drunk and wouldn't remember if I saw it or not.

Government pomp and circumstances doesn't really interest me. Even if someone I had voted for had won, I doubt I'd be too eager to watch it. I'm more interested in the policy, the actual things that will happen, than the symbolic ceremonies. If someone happens to turn the battered Crosley TV that hangs in our office on on Tuesday, I might look at it for a minute or two, but I'm not hitting the on switch.