Roep-A-Dope

Sun Times columnist and ersatz movie reviewer Richard Roeper is the latest joker to jump into the fray with the suggestion that President Bush cancel his inauguration festivities and donate the money to tsunami relief. Liberals are making political hay out of this, despite the fact that the US government, and Americans generally, are leading the way with both physical and monetary support for the relief effort.

I reckon that in January, 1993, there were also a multitude of good causes on which to spend other people's money, but that didn't stop Bill Clinton from spending upwards of $30 million on his own inauguration. One would be hard-pressed to find the liberal peanut gallery calling for an end to such waste at that time, but you are welcome to initiate your own fruitless search. I include myself in that group, of course, because insisting on the suspension of expenditure of such a paltry sum (by government standards), especially when it isn't taxpayer money, would have been rather asinine.

Others have come up with alternative and, in my mind, more constructive ways to redirect funds to disaster relief. I have a few of my own:

• Take the millions that are being wasted on pointless, partisan legal efforts to force a baseless investigation into the presidential vote in Ohio and send it to the Red Cross.
• The Sun-Times can dismiss career political hacks like Jesse Jackson, who pen long-winded op-ed pieces advocating baseless investigations into the presidential vote in Ohio. Send what they are paying for his empty prose to USAid.
• Stop wasting money, a la the Sun-Times, on hysterical stories about 15-year-olds who can buy gory video games, which get Governor Quimby worked into a lather. Send that money overseas.
• Democrats are about to waste millions of taxpayer $$ on a partisan fight against Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzalez. Stop it now and send that money on.

See? All that and we can still have a big inauguration bash. I'm willing to listen to other ideas.