The Cost of the Inauguration: A Cold Wind Blows

Over the next few years, we're going to see the traditional DC game of Political Chairs played by Republicans and Democrats, with fervently held opinions and outrages abandoned in favor of new, more convenient opinions and outrages. It's a normal human thing to be captured by convenience, but Washington DC seems especially immune to the idea of categorical imperatives.

Two columns by Media Matters' Eric Boehlert (latest via Steve Benen) capture this "...aaaaand switch!" dynamic quite well. In 2005, Boehlert was outraged at Bush's inauguration.

He wrote, "The D.C. press corps failed to ask hard questions about the inauguration's huge cost and its unprecedented security."
He emphasized a poll that showed Americans would have preferred a smaller inaugural party (did the Washington Post even bother doing one of those this time around?).
He attacked "the costly security overkill" which "clearly plays to Bush's political advantage by keeping terrorist threats at the top of people's minds."
He criticized the media for only reporting confirmed numbers, rather than using the speculative, uncomfirmed numbers that had been named in some places.
He puts "the real cost at closer to $70 million, instead of the media's preferred $40 million."
Flash forward to 2009 and Eric Boehlert is feeling the Change.

Rather than criticizing the huge cost and unprecedented security of the 2009 inauguration, Boehlert attacks the media for using inadequate numbers for the 2005 inauguration, putting Obama's 2009 inauguration in a comparatively bad light.
After spending 2005 criticizing the media for not using the speculative, unconfirmed numbers cited in some places, Boehlert is suddenly aghast that the media is using speculative, unconfirmed (but entirely reasonable) numbers.
The "real cost" of Bush's 2005 inaugural has gone from "closer to $70 million" (Boehlert, 2005) to "$157 million" (Boehlert, 2009).
Not a word about security "overkill".
Mind you, neither of Boehlert's articles is really wrong, per se. You can be outraged about the enormous cost of a party for a politician and outraged about the press' inability to understand the numbers involved.

But the difference between these two articles is certainly instructive about the sincerity of his outrage over unconfirmed numbers, the cost of an inauguration and security overkill.