I just want to go over a few things regarding today's activities. First, I have to say that although I didn't vote for Obama (I would never vote for someone that liberal), I still felt a sense of pride and dignity as I watched the inauguration process today. For one, I was proud to hear that with all the masses of people who were in Washington DC today, not one disorderly conduct citation was issued. Not one. It was peaceful, it was orderly, it was the way it should be for this great American process. The rotation of leadership.
Now I can go on about how Bush was treated unfairly. How Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, John Kerry, and scores of other Democrats said during Clinton's administration that "Saddam and his WMD must be taken out" - and how Bush came along and instead of just talking the talk, he walked the walk - and the liberals hated him for it. Or about how his poll numbers went down only because he disappointed his conservative base by catering to the liberals - who thanked him by hating him more and giving him the bad approval ratings that they would have given him anyway. Or how he liberated 50,000,000 from the tyranny of terrorist rule. How he protected us from another terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. I can turn this into a 'defend-Bush' article real quick if I wanted to. But I won't.
I can also gripe about this inauguration costing 150 million dollars. I can also bring up how the DOW dropped 332 points today while this $150,000,000 inauguration was taking place - and how little the mainstream media reported it. Or how the Dow fell 14 percent between Barack Obama’s election and Inauguration Day, the biggest decline ever. But I won't.
Instead I will say that I was proud to be an American today and to see the enthusiasm on the faces of all those happy, smiling people. Again, Obama was not my choice, but I felt happy because I knew those people were happy. Which does bring me to my first point about one of the major differences between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.
During Bush's inauguration, not just his second one, but even his first one, there were dissenters there from the get-go - ready to jeer, hiss, and boo as he went by. And they did. Many of them yelling things like "You are not my President" and "Go back to Texas". But there was none of that kind of rhetoric towards President Obama today. Why? Is it because Obama has no dissenters? Is it because the entire nation thinks he's going to be a great leader? No. That's not why.
The fact is, and I will be so bold, that conservative Republicans have more respect for their country then liberal Democrats do. It's that conservatives, by and large, will at least have the decency and respect to hold back these kinds of protests during the day of the presidential inauguration. Yes, there will be plenty of Obama-bashing in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. Of that I am most certain. But not today.
Today was a day to welcome our new President and at least give him the benefit of the doubt. A day to respect the man who was elected to lead our nation. A day to put love of country and respect for the process above personal opinion. A day to put differences aside - if only for today.
This, my friends, is why there was no boo'ing and hissing towards our new Commander in Chief. May God bless him and may God show him the way and be a profound factor in all of Mr. Obama's decisions. The sense of pride and dignity in our nation that I felt is something a liberal can never feel when it isn't his or her man standing there being sworn in. I think I can safely speak for most conservatives when I say that in spite of who it was being sworn in, we still felt that sense of pride and dignity and love for country - and these feelings come before our need to scream out in dissent. Respect for the process. Respect for America. Something that, sadly, the liberals just didn't seem to have on this day in 2005 and 2001. Something that, sadly, the liberals only seem to have when they get what they want. In this case, that was Obama.
But even yet. Scores from the crowd still managed to boo H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush, and Dick Cheney when they came out to speak. Even still. And worse yet - they not only boo'd these men, they even boo'd Laura Bush - the school teacher who happens to be the wife of George W. Bush and the former First Lady - as if she, too, did something wrong. Nice. Real nice people.
I do think that although most of us will have some serious discontent with Obama's ways and means as his administration wears on, some even bitter at times, we will still - for the most part, anyway - refrain from the downright intolerance and hate that the liberals showed our former President G.W. Bush.
Billy Kess